Women´s Language: A History of Indian-English Women Writers

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Women’s Language: A history of Indian-English Women Writers.

“Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband.”

- Virginia Woolf

In ‘A Room of One’s Own’ Viriginia Woolf attempted to write about the history of women’s writing by including real women writers like Jane Austen, George Eliot as well as those who could have existed if they were given the space like Shakespeare’e sister. The epigraph above holds true for Indian-English women writers as well until very recently. The male dominated literary tradition, in India, until the 1970s did not acknowledge the works of women writers and yet Woman has always found representation in works of art. There is a proliferation of t...

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...um/Pittsburgh. 2014. Web.

7. Woolf, Virginia. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. National Society for Women’s Service. 1931. Web. 19th April 2014.

8. Roy, Anita. 21 under 40. 2007. Zubaan, an imprint of Kali for Women. Print.

9. Sheshadri, Vijayalaskhmi. The New Woman in Indian-English Women Writers Since The 1970s. 1995. B.R.Publishing Coporation. Print.

10. Cixous,Helene. Cohen, Keith. Cohen,Paula. Laugh of the medusa. The University of Chicago Press. 2009. Web. 2014.

11. Kristeva,Julia. Jardine,Alice.Blake, Harry. Women’s Time.The University of Chicago Press. 2010. Web. 2014.

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