Reading the writing of women from Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë to Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath, we were surprised by the coherence of theme and imagery that we encountered in the works of writers who were often geographically, historically, and psychologically distant from each other. Indeed, even when we studied women's achievements in radically different genres, we found what began to seem a distinctively female literary tradition, a tradition that had been approached and appreciated by many women readers and writers but which no one had yet defined in its entirety. Images of enclosure and escape, fantasies in which maddened doubles functioned as asocial surrogates for docile selves, metaphors of physical discomfort manifested in frozen landscapes and fiery interiors—such patterns recurred throughout this tradition, along with obsessive depictions of diseases like anorexia, agoraphobia, and claustrophobia.

The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

‘Looking Oppositely: Emily Brontë’s Bible of Hell’, in The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Gibbous Moon beyond Swedish Mountain: This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun, and a crescent moon, when only a sliver of the Moon's face is lit. When more than half of the Moon is illuminated, though, but still short of full illumination, the phase is called gibbous. Rarely seen in television and movies, gibbous moons are quite common in the actual night sky. The featured image was taken in Jämtland, Sweden near the end of 2018 October. That gibbous moon turned, in a few days, into a crescent moon, and then a new moon, then back to a crescent, and a few days past that, back to gibbous. Setting up to capture a picturesque gibbous moonscape, the photographer was quite surprised to find an airplane, surely well in the foreground, appearing to fly past it. Image Credit & Copyright: Göran Strand

[Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

AFTER THANKSGIVING

Lord, as Rilke says, the year bears down toward winter, past the purification of the trees, the darkened brook. Only 4:45, and the sky's sheer black clasps two clear planets and a skinny moon as we drive quietly home from the airport, the last kid gone. The time of preparation's over, the time of harvesting the seed, the husk, the kernel, saving what can be saved - weaves of sun like rags of old flannel, provident peach stones, pies, pickles, berry wines to hold the sweetness for a few more months. Now the mountains will settle into their old cold habits, now the white birch bones will rise like all those thoughts we've tried to repress: madness of the solstice, phosphorescent logic that rules the fifteen-hour night! Our children, gorged, encouraged, have taken off in tiny shuddering planes. Plump with stuffing, we too hurry away, holding hands, holding on. Soon it'll be January, soon snow will shuffle down, cold feathers, swathing us in inches of white silence - and the ways of the ice will be narrow, delicate. - Sandra M. Gilbert Blood Pressure

[alive on all channels]

The 'killing' of oneself into an art object -- the pruning and preening, the mirror madness

- from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

me about to argue in my essay that there's more basis for calling jane eyre 'insane' than bertha mason, thus proving that 'the madwoman in the attic' trope is obviously patriarchal nonsense and it's always been about controlling women: real hot girl shit :P

Elain Archeron & The Themes of Jane Eyre

(Debunking that quote that connects Lucien & Elain with the actual themes of Jane Eyre)

There's been a lot of discourse where Elain stating there's a 'pull on her rib' to a quote has been connected to Jane Eyre and soulmates, specifically between Jane and Rochester.

However, Lucien and Elain are more connected to Jane and St. John, whereas Azriel and Elain are more similar to Rochester and Jane.

Here's why:

To start off, I don't believe anyone's story will be a Jane Eyre retelling because this does not hold up to modern times. But the pivotal themes of Jane Eyre focus on love and desire over duty, specifically when it comes to marriage, autonomy, gender, social status, religion, etc.

Who else do we know that has struggled with this? Perhaps a young Archeron that was raised to be the perfect wife?

Jane refuses to marry St. John because she does not love him, but St. John pressures Jane to ignore her feelings and submit to his powerful conception of moral duty. ⬇️

"You are his mate. Do you even know what that means?" "It means nothing," Elain said, her voice breaking. "You belong to him." "I belong to no one. But my heart belongs to you." - ACOWAR

Jane's duty is to St. John (similar to how Elain's duty is to Lucien), but it is shown that she struggles with duty and responsibility all her life and chooses love (including loving herself) and desire over this. She eventually marries Rochester, who loves her for her internal, rather than external beauty.

Lucien exists as a foil for Azriel in the same way that St. John is a foil for Rochester.

"Bronte created a heroine who wants to learn what love is and how to find it, just as she herself did. Bronte was unusually explict in placing that protagonist amid dysfunctional famiilies, perverse partnerships, and abusive caretakers." - Literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert

I love Jane Eyre - it's a book that I had read for the first time at a young age, a play that I performed in, and I've had a copy on my shelf for as long as I remember. It is certainly not an easy read, but I do feel that it's easy to quote from Jane Eyre, but another thing to actually understand the major themes that Bronte is presenting.

She's a romantic heroine - not a sword-fighting, warrior heroine, but she is still considered to be strong and powerful. (Just like Elain) 🙂

April 7, 2024: The First Line is the Deepest, Kim Addonizio

The First Line is the Deepest Kim Addonizio

I have been one acquainted with the spatula, the slotted, scuffed, Teflon-coated spatula

that lifts a solitary hamburger from pan to plate, acquainted with the vibrator known as the Pocket Rocket

and the dildo that goes by Tex, and I have gone out, a drunken bitch,

in order to ruin what love I was given,

and also I have measured out my life in little pills—Zoloft,

Restoril, Celexa, Xanax.

I have. For I am a poet. And it is my job, my duty to know wherein lies the beauty

of this degraded body, or maybe

it's the degradation in the beautiful body, the ugly me

groping back to my desk to piss on perfection, to lay my kiss

of mortal confusion upon the mouth of infinite wisdom.

My kiss says razors and pain, my kiss says America is charged with the madness

of God. Sundays, too, the soldiers get up early, and put on their fatigues in the blue-

black day. Black milk. Black gold. Texas tea. Into the valley of Halliburton rides the infantry—

Why does one month have to be the cruelest, can't they all be equally cruel? I have seen the best

gamers of your generation, joysticking their M1 tanks through the sewage-filled streets. Whose

world this is I think I know.

--

Poetry nerd extra credit: How many repurposed bits from famous poems can you find? I count 7 and I'm probably missing some!

Also by Kim Addonizio:

+ For Desire + Mermaid Song* + Onset + My Heart

* (Weird fact: this is about her daughter, Aya Cash, who starred in the sitcom You're the Worst. What!)

Today in:

2023: Insha’Allah, Danusha Laméris 2022: To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall, Kim Addonizio 2021: You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?, Elizabeth Acevedo 2020: Let Me Begin Again, Philip Levine 2019: Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi 2018: Siren Song, Margaret Atwood 2017: A Sunset, Ari Banias 2016: Coming, Philip Larkin 2015: The Taxi, Amy Lowell 2014: Winter Sunrise Outside a Café Near Butte, Montana, Joe Hutchison 2013: The Last Night in Mithymna, Linda Gregg 2012: America [Try saying wren], Joseph Lease 2011: Boston, Aaron Smith 2010: How Simile Works, Albert Goldbarth 2009: Crossing Over, William Meredith 2008: The World Wakes Up, Andrew Michael Roberts 2007: Hour, Christian Hawkey 2006: For the Anniversary of My Death, W.S. Merwin 2005: The Last Poem About the Snow Queen, Sandra M. Gilbert

The Angel in the House

"Man must be pleased; but him to please   Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf Of his condoled necessities   She casts her best, she flings herself."

In 1854, the English poet Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore published his poem "The Angel in the House," which depicted his first wife, Emily. Much of his poetry focused on his idealized marriage life, and after Emily's death, a wave of grief haunted the rest of Patmore's work.

The cultural significance of this work is immense. Gender, as a social construct, has been defined and redefined numerous times. Attributes of femininity today differ significantly from the past. Nevertheless, certain ideas and motifs from past centuries remain familiar to us: women occupying a place in society solely determined by men.

"The Angel in the House" became a crucial motif in British and American literature during the 19th century. This term represents a woman imprisoned in the domestic sphere of social life, devoid of economic freedom and any work beyond serving her husband. Thus, economic independence for women was nearly impossible except for the lower economic class where women had to work to make a living. The Cult of Domesticity advocated four cardinal virtues—piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness—which defined femininity so distinctly that deviation was impossible. Victorian women either had to be passive angels or active monsters. It is also worth noting that this concept is highly race and class-based, meaning it mainly applies to upper-class white women.

Many other similar motifs appear in literary history like “the mad woman in the attic" in Jane Eyre which later contributed to the feminist approach to literature as a theory holding the same name. Instead of discussing every term and explain what they mean, I want to emphasize the importance of gender as an analytical category in literary studies. The absence or scarcity of female authors in many literary eras is perfectly described by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar as “the anxiety of authorship." Just as Ms. George Eliot crawled during daytime with her doors locked like the hysteric female protagonist of Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper, European and American women were so repressed by the family dynamics of their time that even the most privileged ones were hesitant to write or publish their writings. They knew they would not be recognized, and they feared the consequences of being more than they were allowed to.

In short, literature written by women is itself feminist liberation—a powerful urge that led women all around the world to fight for each other's existence. This aspect must be taken into consideration as a part of the historical background when examining the literary works of the past centuries. As Andrea Dworkin puts it more explicitly, "No woman could be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or lobotomized."

William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience

p.s. If you enjoyed reading this, I will also be posting short articles on Medium. I would appreciate the support *-*

re. your post about nonfiction, do you have any nonfiction books that you would recommend to people who haven't read any ever?

these are some of the ones i've read that i either loved or just ones that i think offer a bit to the conversation. if anyone has more recs for me, please send some <3

know my name, chanel miller (10/10)

crying in h mart, michelle zauner

i'm glad my mom died, jennette mccurdy

everything i know about love, dolly alderton

trainwreck: the women we love to hate, mock, and fear...and why, sady doyle

dead blondes and bad mothers: monstrosity, patriarchy, and the fear of female power, sady doyle

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion, jia tolentino (there are people who hate this one, and then there are communications students. i'm a communications student)

bad feminist: essays, roxane gay (really great introductory book to nonfiction/feminist theory)

all about love: new visions, bell hooks

call them by their true names: american crises, rebecca solnit

empireland: how imperialism has shaped modern britain, sathnam sanghera (a little tedious for me, but an important read nevertheless)

the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination, sandra m. gilbert & susan gubar

mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male power, ijeoma oluo (READ THIS!!!!)

men who hate women: from incels to pickup artists, the truth about extreme misogyny and how it affects us all, laura bates

a curious history of sex, kate lister (served absolute cunt)

@quarkfcker asked me to compile a list of my favorite works of critical theory - here you go! if anyone is interested in the titles i’ll try to find links later (i’m currently stuck in bed with an endometriosis flare up and posting this from my phone lol)

Susan Sontag - Illness as Metaphor (deals critically with attaching morality to health; in one of my favorite sections Sontag discusses the vocabulary around getting better - “fighting” cancer, “beating” a disease, etc)

Cassie Pedersen - “Encountering Trauma ‘Too Soon’ and ‘Too Late’: Caruth, Laplanche, and the Freudian Nachträglichkeit” in Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions, and Transfigurations (Deconstruction of Freud’s notion that trauma is time-based and only recurrent after the action)

Judith Butler - Gender Trouble (one of my favs forever)

Eve Sedgewick - “Epistemology of the Closet” and “Between Men” (Between Men especially)

I would try very hard to muscle through a little bit of Jacques Lacan just to understand the concept of the Other. It’s not gonna be easy or fun though.

Sigmund Freud - “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (I know I know boo we hate your pussy Sigmund but I think it’s important to read Freud so you can have a leg to stand on when you’re arguing against him. He also wasn’t wrong all the time, and a lot of his theory gets picked up by feminist scholars, especially these essays. I think often it’s a matter of needing someone who wasn’t a misogynist to contextualize his work.)

Edward Saïd - Orientalism

Frantz Fanon - Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth (both are postcolonialist theory. Fanon is a huge name in poco that you should know.)

Louis Althusser - “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (don’t fuck with the working class etc. This one gives you cool and smart-sounding words like The Superstructure.)

Rosi Braidotti - The Posthuman (Good way to dip your toes into the never ending pool of posthumanism.)

Deleuze and Guattari are interesting but I would watch some Youtube videos explaining their work rather than just reading them because it is not brain friendly to me. Check out “The Body without Organs” and “Rhizomes” specifically. However be mindful that reading firsthand is always a good start to understanding, and videos should be supplemental.

Walter Pater and Matthew Arnold are dear to me because I’m a Romantic/Victorian scholar but if you’re not then you probably won’t get as much out of them. I still think Arnold’s Stones of Venice and Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance are good foundational reads to understand a lot of the basis of art and criticism today.

Sigmund Freud (again) - “The Uncanny”

Zora Neale Hurston is incredible and a good name to keep in your pocket. She was a Black anthropologist and a lot of her work is deeply astoundingly moving.

FUCK SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Roland Barthes - “Death of the Author” (this is required reading for everyone.)

Peruse a good bit of Foucault.

Jacques Derrida - “Spectres of Marx,” “Hauntology,” etc. (I LOVE DERRIDA!!!! I’d definitely read an introduction to deconstruction first.)

Toni Morrison - “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature” (you should already be reading Toni Morrison.)

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar - The Madwoman in the Attic (Loove this one. Feminist reading of Victorian literature.)

Hélène Cixous is a good name to know and have in your filing cabinet, as is Julia Kristeva.

Any and all bell hooks you can find, especially “Postmodern Blackness” and Feminism is for Everyone. If you’re planning on being anywhere near the sphere of education, check out Teaching to Transgress.

Jack Halberstam - “Female Masculinity” (Butchness and how it differs from male masculinity)

Rob Nixon - “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor”

E. Ann Kaplan - Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature (connection between the individual and cultural trauma)

Both in life and in art, we saw, the artists we studied were literally and figuratively confined. Enclosed in the architecture of an overwhelmingly male-dominated society, these literary women were also, inevitably, trapped in the specifically literary constructs of what Gertrude Stein was to call "patriarchal poetry." For not only did a nineteenth-century woman writer have to inhabit ancestral mansions (or cottages) owned and built by men, she was also constricted and restricted by the Palaces of Art and Houses of Fiction male writers authored. We decided, therefore, that the striking coherence we noticed in literature by women could be explained by a common, female impulse to struggle free from social and literary confinement through strategic redefinitions of self, art, and society.

The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Heathcliff’s presence gives the girl a fullness of being that goes beyond power in household politics, because as Catherine’s whip he is an alternative self or double for her, a complimentary addition to her being who fleshes out all her lacks the way a bandage might staunch a wound. Thus in her union with him she becomes, like Manfred in his union with his sister Astarte, a perfect androgyne.

‘Looking Oppositely: Emily Brontë’s Bible of Hell’, in The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

— st petersburg mosquitoes are really , sandra m. gilbert

a moodboard for an aedes aegypti moquito, themed around black, white, red and gold

heathcliff is the original middle aged male babygirl when u think about it

Bibliography

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. "Looking Oppositely: Emily Bronte's Bible of Hell." The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Yale University Press, 1979.

an opinion that i think would make me unpopular in literary circles is that the madwoman in the attic (specifically the chapter on jane eyre) is a really really bad example of what feminist literary criticism should be. it's terrible but it's been mythologized.

#HappyWomensDay!💐 Let us celebrate women's literature and history today and every day!📚💕 --- In college, in my "The Norton Anthology Of Literature By Women," I treasured a beautiful tapestry of many women writers' works, poems, essays, letters, or excerpts of works. I loved Anne Bradstreet's poetry, Abigail Adams' letters (especially "Remember the Ladies"), Phillis Wheatley's poetry, Sojourner Truth's courageous story & speeches (especially "Ain't I a Woman?"), & Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry. I treasured Harriet Beecher Stowe's courage, Harriet Jacobs' story of resilience while escaping slavery, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, & Florence Nightingale. And I enjoyed Charlotte Bronte, George Elliot (her pen name), Emily Bronte, & Emily Dickinson. My favorite was Alice Walker's "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens." I, also, read Virginia Wolf's "A Room of One's Own" and many more authors, poets, & writers who broadened my literary horizons. I definitely recommend this book that covers a multitude of women writers and writing styles from past eras to the recent Modern Era (20th century).💐 📷(Copyright of my #bookreview & photo: #Inknscroll)📖 (In college, I read most of these two anthologies. Here are the above complete titles: "The Norton Anthology Of Literature By Women: The Traditions In English," by (Editors) Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, (Contributor) Anne Spencer. And "The Harper American Literature, Single Volume Edition," by (Editors) Robert Atwan & others.) #InternationalWomensDay #WomensLiterature #American #British #European #books #biography #nonfiction #WomensHistory #Americanhistory #writersofinstagram #bookstagram #history #bookworm #autobiography #memoirs #literature #goodreads #authors #writers #poets #books #AmericanLiterature #WomensHistoryMonth #equality #Inknscrollbookreview #WomensDay 💐📚🎉 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpibpe9vSv9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=