Book Review: Eve Bites Back, by Anna Beer

A novel by Virginia Woolf once gave me chills. A new book about “Mrs.” Dalloway changed my mind.

To explore these and related issues, Beer, a professor at Kellogg College, Oxford, offers biographies and reassessments of eight women writers from the 14th to the 19th century. She begins and continues with two late medieval autobiographers, the pious Julien of Norwich (“But all will be well, and all things will be well”) and the talkative Margery Kempe. and Renaissance poet Emilia Lanyer (her major work is “Salve Deus”, culminating in her portrayal of female utopia), Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet, racy revival playwright Ahura Benn, and Mary Wortley Montagu, the well-traveled 18th-century letter writer. Finally, we introduce her two major novelists of the 19th century, Jane Austen and Mary Her Elizabeth Braddon. Her chapters on all these authors are engrossingly anecdotal, critically argumentative, and at times unnecessarily belligerent in tone. I say “unnecessarily belligerent” because, with the exception of Lanier’s part, these writers had attended many college literature courses in America since at least her mid-twentieth century.

This is not to say that they all get the attention they deserve. Remember when AL Rowse suggested that she who edited the verses Lanyer could be the “dark lady” in Shakespeare’s sonnets? And I have long treasured “The Elaborate Selected Writings of Mrs. Aphra Behn,” in her 1950 Grove Press edition, edited by my literary mentor, Robert Phelps. I can’t be the only one who keeps Montague’s letters on the same shelf as her friend Alexander Pope’s poems. Jane Austen is, well, Jane Austen. And anyone who reads Victorian ghost stories has long admired Braddon’s “Cold Embrace,” “Evelyn’s Visitor,” and her chilling vampire tale, “Good Lady Duquesne.” .

Remember when high culture was worshiped?

Nevertheless, it is true that none of these writers, with the exception of Austin, has exercised much literary influence, and is one practical sign of a truly classical author or text. That has now changed, as literary courses in the This is also a beer priority.

Throughout “Eve Bites Back,” she repeatedly highlights the obstacles faced by women who, in the pre-Victorian era, wanted to write and publish, let alone earn a living with pens. Biel condemns patriarchy for keeping women in their places—for keeping them at home, bearing children, running the household, and providing moral guidance, especially to capricious husbands and sons. ing. But patriarchy may only be an intermediate cause. As other scholars argue, Christianity is the ultimate culprit, imposing notions about the proper behavior of men and women derived from long-standing theological doctrines.

From time immemorial, Adam was associated with reason and Eve with emotion. To avoid sin, reason has played a role in keeping emotions in check. In effect, the fall from paradise occurred because weak Adam neglected his duty and Eve’s sweet words led them astray. The incorrigible woman needs to be regulated, she needs to channel her emotions towards gentle household chores and appreciate the guidance of (perhaps) rational men. It assigns authority and command to women, assigns obedience and obedience to women, and fixes men and women to a unique mode of existence.

Under such a system, it was more unnatural for a woman to insist on independence. As Biel emphasizes, a woman who has long revealed her personal self in print is not only humble, but figuratively a prostitute and can afford to pay for her book. It was commonly thought, if semi-consciously, that it was available to any passerby. What man wants his wife, daughter or sister to be seen as a whore? This may sound a little harsh, but it’s in line with her Beer face-to-face style. Rather than calling for justice for women authors, “Eve Bites Back” indicts a system that has long ignored them and still does to some extent.

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Throughout her book, Beer emphasizes that women writers tend to focus on their inner selves — in part because they’ve been denied public life for so long. Yes — leading to confessional poetry, memoirs, letters, diaries, and other intimate forms. Regularly derided as “feminine” and consequently viewed as minor compared to the multi-volume works of tough-guy epics, tragedies and histories, women began writing novels in the 18th century and her 19th century As a result, novels fell in value and were dismissed as frivolous popular entertainment. Again, we see the biblical hierarchy unfolding.

But Beer isn’t automatically rooting for someone with two X chromosomes. She complains that there is a “cozy dash of feminism” in a photo of Bradstreet rocking a baby while biographer Charlotte Gordon writes a poem. He reveals his indecision about Ben, who may have been the first woman to make a living out of a baby, but essentially by becoming one of the boys. She points to Montague’s anti-Semitism and her apparent endorsement of harem life and the enslavement of the Ottoman Turks during her long stay in Istanbul. Only Braddon, the mother of several out-of-wedlock children and a surprisingly prolific and successful author, garners Biel’s near-total respect. Braddon lived the life she chose and found her happiness in it.

Part polemical, part revisionist critique, “Eve Bites Back” is, as its title suggests, sharply aggressive, inspiring, enlightening, persuasive, and argumentative. It’s a provocative book. It’s a fix in every sense of the word.

Alternative History of English Literature