Female Authors

The book provides a sentence-by-sentence translation of Die Judenbuche (1842) by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, arguably one of Germany’s greatest female poets. Often thought of as a detective novel, The Jews’ Beech Tree is as much a mystery to read today as it was in 1842. Featuring the original German and the translated English side-by-side, this text also includes three critical introductions and two additional poetry translations.

Current postcolonial theory maintains that most emerging nationalist movements inevitably construct a post-revolutionary society that mimics the colonial structure they sought to overthrow. During the decolonization process in Ireland, all indications suggested that Ireland would replicate exactly the same misogynistic, intolerant and bigoted society as had existed under colonial rule. This paper seeks to prove that authors Emily Lawless, Augusta Gregory, Eva Gore-Booth and Edith Somerville presented an alternative cultural vision to that of the cultural nationalist movement. Their writings recognize that Ireland was not comprised of a single monolithic culture, but a conglomeration of its historical experiences. Rather than replicating the binary opposition of native versus imperialist, they understood that a successful transition to an independent nation was one in which all the minority voices, those “Others” of imperial discourse were united in a political structure that embraced and respected the differences inherent in its citizens. It was this recognition of the diversity of Irish culture, of its rich heritage of Catholic and Protestant, Briton and Celt, male and female experiences that constituted the vision of the Ireland in which they wished to live, write and enjoy personal freedom.

Between the Middle Ages and modern times there was in Castile a phenomenon of feminine prophetism with great public impact. Among its main exponents are two tertiaries, the Dominican Mary of Santo Domingo and the Franciscan Juana de la Cruz. Both women incarnated the word of God in a particular way. We will analyze the communication systems that these women used to be heard trying to evaluate the weight of orality and writing in a moment of change from an oral culture to a "civilization of writing" because some important aspects of its prophetic announcement are found here.
En la transición de la Edad Media a la Moderna se dio en Castilla un fenómeno de profetismo femenino con gran repercusión pública. Entre sus principales exponentes destacan dos terciarias, la dominica María de Santo Domingo y la franciscana Juana de la Cruz. Ambas encarnaron la palabra de Dios de forma peculiar. Analizamos aquí los sistemas comunicativos que emplearon para hacerse oír intentando valorar el peso de la oralidad y de la cultura escrita en el momento de cambio de una cultura oral a una “civilización del escrito” por entender que aquí radican algunos aspectos importantes de su anuncio profético.

Ana Plácido (1831-1895) foi uma autora portuguesa que viveu e escreveu na sombra do seu amante, e posterior marido, Camilo Castelo Branco. Sendo hoje praticamente esquecida pela crítica literária, a sua obra é, ainda assim, de extrema importância para o estudo do romance oitocentista e do Romantismo português. No texto “Às Portas da Eternidade”, incluído na sua obra Luz coada por ferros, a autora faz das conturbações psicológicas de uma mulher abandonada pelo amante toda a tessitura do seu texto. A atmosfera sombria e gótica composta pelo ambiente que a circunda e pela iminência da morte transformam este conto numa história de fantasmas, em que a protagonista está prestes a transpor a barreira entre a vida e a morte. O suicídio por amor é neste conto desenhado como um fim desesperado para uma alma sem salvação. A consciência feminina é, aqui como noutros textos deste volume, o lugar por excelência da expressão do terror e angústia psicológicos femininos.Palavras-chave: romance oitoc...

This paper examines the Fables of Marie de France as instructive examples addressed to a public that did not necessarily have access to the Latin Fable tradition. A first section analyzes the authority of Fables, and the ways in which Marie inserts herself as a female authority within a masculine tradition of translatio studii. In the second, I explore the potential audience for fables written in French rather than in Latin. Finally, I analyze fables that speak to female experience. Through these analyses I demonstrate that the often problematic rupture between the fable narrative and its moral in Marie's Fables is often quite intentional. In fact, this rupture often leads to a new "sens" which has bearing on the «realia» of female experience.

Ana Plácido (1831-1895) is a Portuguese female author who lived and wrote mostly in the shade of her lover and husband Camilo Castelo Branco. Her work, though almost forgotten and rarely read, is invaluable to the study of the Portuguese nineteenth-century novel and the female figure so frequently depictured in it. Herança de Lágrimas, her biggest work, focuses on the love life of the daughter of a woman who lost everything for adulterous love. Diana, on the brink of following her mother’s steps, is halted by the letter revealed to her by her husband, which her mother had written before being devoured by consumption after months of suffering and loneliness. By centering the plot around women, their love life and their feelings and thoughts, Plácido places first-hand female psychology as the main concern of her work, allowing for a different perspective from that used by contemporary male authors and encouraging women readers to reflect about their own lives and condition. In this article we aim to assess how the female characters in this work are depicted as martyrs from being forced to marry men they do not love and then being seduced by ruthless lovers who end up despising them. Their suffering and repent, caused by the social consequences of being an adulterous wife, allow them the moral and emotional redemption that society does not. Martyrs for love perhaps, but not for the everlasting love that justifies the sacrifice: rather for an illusion, an ideal quickly and drastically undone.