Asserting women’s intellectual legitimacy through coercive subtlety: An analysis of the narrative voices of Anne Bradstreet and Susanna Rowson

Type :

Case study

Pages :

6 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

11/11/2008

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction.
1. Women in America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
2. The trials of Anne Hutchinson.
Anne Bradstreet's poetry.
1. The publishing of The Tenth Muse.
2. The Prologue - defending the abilities of women in artistic endeavors.
3. Strategically motivated submission and modesty.
4. The conflict within Bradstreet's poetry.
Rowson's preface to Charlotte Temple and Anne Bradstreet's 'The Prologue' to The Tenth Muse.
The works of Anne Bradstreet and Susanna Rowson - defiance of intellectual restrictions.
Conclusion.

Abstract

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women in America were dominantly expected to be ethical, simple-minded, and largely uneducated members of their community. As a result, female writers would often face strong social scrutiny based on this governing gender subordination because of their challenging positions to these norms. The act of writing as a woman during this period was thus considered a bold act of defiance against such limiting standards. Subsequently, as evidenced by the trials of anne Hutchinson, a brazenly intelligent and authoritative woman would inevitably meet ridicule and estrangement within her community. In order to effectively challenge the social mores of the period and assume legitimacy as an author without this kind of rejection, women writers were therefore forced to exhibit a more subtle defiance within their craft. To do so, writers like anne bradstreet and later susanna rowson constructed female narrators who successfully fulfilled many of the feminine expectations of the community, while allowing the readers to trust that identity on the basis of rationale and reason.