Crafty Feminists

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Master Thesis English Language and Culture

University of Groningen

Department of English Language and Culture

Crafty Feminists

American Feminist Writers and the Dutch Literary Press

1867-1881 and 1960-1978

By Bernadette Agnes Geradts 1344951

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To Mother

I hope that soon, dear mother, You and I may be

In the quiet room my fancy Has so often made for thee,- The pleasant, sunny chamber,

The cushioned easy-chair, The book laid for your reading,

The vase of flowers fair; The desk beside the window, Where the sun shines warm and bright;

And there in ease and quiet The promised book you write;

While I sit close beside you Content at last to see That you can rest dear mother,

And I can cherish thee.

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Preface

It was in 2004, when I was following a course on nineteenth-century English literature, that I was first introduced to feminist writings. One of the novels that were discussed in this course was The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin. I was overwhelmed by Chopin’s

straightforwardness and the individual strength of her protagonist Edna Pontellier, and realised I wanted to learn more about feminism through the literary legacies of its advocates. Therefore, when choosing a topic for my bachelor thesis on Modern Literature, I knew I desperately wanted to discuss the feminist writings of Virginia Woolf. My Bachelor thesis, which bore the title “Room to Establish Androgyny”, analysed Woolf’s novels Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), and compared the theme of androgyny in these two novels with the feminist views that are expressed in “A Room of One’s Own” (1929). It was the character Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse, who made me sympathise with nineteenth-century female artists who continually struggled in the patriarchal society.

But it was not only the feminist writings of first-wave feminism that I was interested in, for I was also affected by Early and Middle English texts on female martyred saint’s lives that taught me about Medieval women who were willing to mutilate themselves in order to protect their virginity in a male chauvinist and hostile society. I considered these women to be the counterparts of Chopin, Woolf and many other women who have fought against male dominancy and violence directed at their gender.

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informed me about the collection of Dutch reviews on American literature that I realised I would be able to realise my aspirations.

During the writing of my thesis, I was fortunate to be supported by a small group of people whom I certainly owe some grateful thanks. First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Irene Visser for her good advice, ideas and guidance throughout my process and for allowing me to use her carefully saved collection of Dutch literary reviews. My faithful friend Kitsa

Pechlivanidis, I would like to thank for her lively temperament, our long talks over dinner, the nourishing cups of green tea, and her views on feminist artists in visual arts. I am also grateful for my family, who strengthened me with their encouragements, bright ideas, and pleasurable visits that were a welcoming source of relaxation. Most importantly, I dearly thank my parents Frank Geradts and Edith Geradts Dekkers for raising me to become the woman I am today. And last but certainly not least, I wish to express my honest thankfulness to Koen Siegers, my lovely boyfriend, who has daily been of the greatest support throughout my writing. I would like to thank him for his devotion and sweet patience, his peaceful and enlightening thinking, all the relaxing cups of tea with honey, the encouraging hugs, and for offering a listening ear when I needed one. But most importantly, I want to thank him for his illuminating humour that continually stimulates my mind and heart.

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Introduction

Courtship and marriage, servants and children, these are the great objects of a woman’s thoughts, and they necessarily form the staple of topics of their writings and their conversation. We have no right to expect anything else in a woman’s book (N.Y. Times, 1799).

In her sketch “Male Criticism on Ladies’ Books” (New York Ledger, 1857), Sarah Willis Parton, alias Fenny Fern, responds to the above quotation by saying that it takes a frustrated writer to publish such a “narrow, snarling criticism”. Sarah Willis Parton was one of the first American women writers who financially supported herself by writing columns, novels, and children’s stories. Even though her writings were well-liked, she encountered obstacles as a female author in a dominant patriarchal literary world, for the reception of ladies’ books was generally adverse. Being a feminist, Willis disapproved of male critics who questioned whether women were capable of writing novels: “Whether ladies can write novels or not, is a question I do not intend to discuss […] is such a shallow, unfair, wholesale, sneering criticism the way to reform them?” (New York Ledger). As the review illustrates, women writers were bound to themes that were considered appropriate by contemporary literary critics. In her sketch Willis asks what would happen if women writers crossed these boundaries: “Would a novel be a novel if it did not treat of courtship and marriage? And if it could be recognized, would it find readers?” Afraid of being rejected by the male critics and finding no readers for their novels, many American female novelists chose not to leave the set boundaries and wrote novels that centred on domesticity, family life, and raising children, which proved to be successful. Novels like House and Home Papers (1865) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Little

Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott focussed on these ‘feminine’ themes and sold many copies in the United States and Europe.

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writers in these periods; what did the Dutch critics consider appropriate genres in women’s writings and what genres did they disapprove of; and what American feminist novels were favoured by the critics? In general, American women writers who expressed feminist ideas through literature had a difficult position in the literary world during first- and second-wave feminism; yet some were well-received by the Dutch literary critics, while many others where either ignored or criticised. I would like to argue that American feminist writers adapted to the anti-feminist literary world by using strategies to gain appreciation from the literary critics during first-wave as well as second-wave feminism. Since “feminism” has become a vague term, it is necessary to define the term first. In The Glossary of Literary Terms, Abrams states that feminist literary criticism:

critiques patriarchal language and literature by exposing how these reflect masculine ideology. It examines gender politics in works and traces the subtle construction of masculinity and femininity, and their relative status, positionings, and marginalizations within works. (79)

I define feminism as an ethical and political attempt to gain gender equality and battle patriarchal societies where masculine ideologies dominate and women do not enjoy the same legal and cultural rights as men.

Patriarchal language and gender politics in literary works was not the only subject of examination of the two waves of feminists, for they also objected to the restrained social and legal position of women in patriarchal societies. These injustices stimulated American

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emancipation of women. As Jane Gerhard states in her essay on second-wave feminism and female sexuality: “Feminists in the late 1960’s joined sexual liberation to women’s liberation, claiming that one without the other would keep women second-class citizens” (465).

As such “second-class American citizens”, women were not only financially

dependent, but female authors were also dealing with literary limitations that were determined by the contemporary literary world. The literary world continued to be a patriarchal domain and discouraged women from writing in ‘masculine’ genres like scientific fiction and erotic literature, especially if they used these genres for feminist purposes. From the 1950’s to the 1980’s, popular genres in American women’s writings were children’s fiction, detectives, and romantic fiction, because these genres did not challenge the existing moral values. Even though these genres were popular, many female authors were aware that they were competing with male authors and often felt they could not fight discrimination in the literary world. Sylvia Plath was one of the gender-conscious women writers who were affected by the status of women in society. As she writes in her poem “Edge” (1963), Plath believes the only thing she can accomplish is death: “The woman is perfected. / Her dead / Body wears the smile of accomplishment” (1-3). Throughout her work, Plath illustrates that, as a woman, she was suffering from a low self-esteem and struggled with self-blame that was created by the dominant patriarchal world.

Many nineteenth-century American women writers similarly struggled with

contemporary norms, because the reception of female authors by male critics was generally unfavourable at this period of history, even though romantic women’s writing was in high demand. In a letter to his publisher William Ticknor, Nathaniel Hawthorne states that “America is now wholly given over to a d-d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash – and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed” (Hawthorne, 1855). Even though American public taste was welcoming women’s writings, the unfavourable literary reception limited female authors. Moreover, it created the self-criticism that can be found in many nineteenth-century feminine novels. Even though many women writers felt discouraged by the masculine literary world and had difficulties finding a publisher, several feminists gave voice to their ideas on gender division and emancipation through literature during the two waves of feminism.

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are well-known second-wave feminist writers who expressed their wish for the liberation of women though literature. For example, in The Women’s Room (1977), French’s protagonist is a radical feminist; in Sexual Politics (1970), Kate Millet argues that women are treated as sexual objects; and in The Feminine Mystique (1963), Betty Friedan critically describes the undervalued domestic situation of women after World War II.

In order to analyse the broad historical context of women’s emancipation in the United States and the developments during both first- and second-wave feminism, I explored a wide range of contemporary sources. I read the “Bill of Rights” (1787) and the added amendments to ascertain the rights of women prior to first-wave feminism, and several speeches and essays by first-wave feminists. Among those texts were the “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848) which is seen as the first official attempt of feminists to gain equal rights for men and women, the political text “Constitutional Equality” (1870) by Victoria Woodhull, and the essay “Maids, Wives, and Widows” (1918) by Rose Falls Bres. Also, I read several issues of the contemporary women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, because this popular magazine would provide information about female gender roles and ideologies that were expressed through popular culture. In order to examine the historical context and developments in second-wave feminism, I read feminist texts on the liberation of women, such as The

Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan which focuses on post-war American society and its gender roles. I also read several 1950’s issues of the women’s magazine Ladies Home Journal and analysed its columns, advertisements, and popular themes.

These sources contributed to the presentation of the historical context of women’s emancipation during the two waves of feminism that can be found in the first- and second chapter of this paper. This historical context forms the basis for my analysis of the reception of American feminist writers in the Dutch literary press, which seeks to examine how the contemporary ideas of gender roles and emancipation influenced the reception of feminist authors in these two periods; what the Dutch critics considered to be appropriate genres in women’s writings and what genres they disapproved of; and which feminist novels were favoured by the critics.

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of American literature dating between 1829 and 19821 that can be found at the Groningen University. The corpus has already been used for reception analysis by others, like J. Bakker. In 1986, J. Bakker published his book Ernest Hemingway in Holland 1925-1981, where he compares the Dutch and American critical reception of Hemingway’s works. In my paper, I discuss Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868) and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying (1973) separately, for these were the earliest well-received feminist novels in the contemporary Dutch literary press. Moreover, the Dutch reception of these novels illustrates how American feminist writers craftily dealt with the reception of feminist writings in the Dutch literary press during the two waves of feminism. By analysing the Dutch reception of Alcott and Jong, this paper will claim that the specific strategies that were used by first-wave feminist writers in order to be recognised in the literary world proved to be similarly effective to feminist authors during second-wave feminism.

For my research it was important to select reviews that were written during the two waves of feminism and created a reliable picture of the Dutch reception of feminist writers, in order to analyse their literary position in these periods. For the reception of female authors during first-wave feminism I selected reviews dating from 1855 to 1900. I started in 1855, because I wanted to examine whether or not feminist writings were reviewed in the early years of first-wave feminism. Even though first-wave feminist continued to be active in the first decades of the twentieth century, my aim was to examine the earliest reviews2 of American feminist novels and to compare their reception with the reception of other contemporary women’s writings. The target period was narrowed down to 1867-1881, because the reviews written in this period provided enough data to compare American feminist novels with other contemporary American women’s writings. Similarly, I selected reviews that were written during second-wave feminism. To be sure that no reviews of feminist novels appeared in the Dutch literary journals in the early years of second-wave feminism, I started reading reviews that were written in 1956. Even though the reviews of American feminist writers started to decline from 1976, I continued researching the material up to 19803. Because no reviews of American feminist novels appeared between 1976 and 1980, and the reviews dating from 1960 to 1978 provided enough data to compare the earliest

1

This corpus of Dutch literary journals was collected by J.G. Riewald and J.Bakker, who led a team of researchers at the Groningen University in the 1970’s. J.G. Riewald published The Critical Reception of

American Literature in the Netherlands, 1824-1900 (1982), but research was carefully extended, which resulted in a broad corpus that includes Dutch literary journals dating from 1829 up to 1982.

2

Table 3 in the appendix indicates the time lapse between the first publication of a novel in America and its first review in the Dutch literary journals at this period in history.

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reviews of American feminist novels with the reception of other contemporary women’s writing, the target period was confined to 1960-1978.

From the 150 scrutinised periodicals from the nineteenth century that were collected by Riewald and Bakker, only 34 contained relevant material about the reception of American literature. The “First Annotated List of Periodicals” (appendix 1) shows the fourteen Dutch literary journals that published reviews of American literature in the nineteenth century and created a clear picture of the Dutch reception of American women writers during first-wave feminism. The “Second Annotated List of Periodicals”4 (appendix 2) shows the twenty Dutch literary periodicals that were used for this paper to analyse the Dutch reception of American feminist writers during second-wave feminism. It was this selection of the corpus that was used as the main source for my reception analysis, because it created a clear picture of the number of American women writers that was reviewed by Dutch literary critics during the two waves of feminism.

For the Dutch reception of American women writers during first-wave feminism I examined all reviews written between 1867 and 18815. The first noticeable American feminist writer who was well-received by the Dutch literary critics was Louisa May Alcott. In 1873 her name appears in the literary journal Vaderlandse Letteroefeningen6. Although her novel Old Fashioned Girls (1870) lacks religious elements, the Dutch literary critic encourages his adolescent female audience to read this valuable story: “For future, yes also for mature girls, I consider this story to be amusing and helpful…” (569)7. Before 1873, the most favoured American women writer in the Dutch literary press was Harriet Beecher Stowe, but her novels can hardly be called feminist works. She is commonly known as an abolitionist, for she advocated against slavery, but neither in her work nor in her private life did she show the same passion for the rights of women. Because she does not examine patriarchal language or gender politics in literature in her writings, I argue that Stowe was not a feminist novelist. Because Alcott’s novels clearly focus on female emancipation, masculine ideologies, and the rights of women, I consider her to be the first well-received American

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Because the list of periodicals that was used for the Dutch reception during first-wave feminism only included magazines and quarterlies, but no daily newspapers, I chose to analyse reviews that appeared in magazines and quarterlies during second-wave feminism and to exclude the reviews published in contemporary daily

newspapers. Moreover, literary journals are solely devoted to literature and are generally considered more prestigious and significant than the literature section in newspapers.

5

The proportion of Dutch reviews of American male and female writings between 1867 and 1881 can be found in appendix 1.

6

Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen was founded in 1761 and published articles on religion and science. It was a rather conservative periodical that was hestitant to accept new movements.

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feminist author. However, the contemporary Dutch literary critics did not identify her as a feminist.

In the Dutch literary journals, Mary Andrews Denison is the only identified feminist novelist who is mentioned by between 1867 and 1881, but the literary critic T.H. de Beer8 does not approve of Denison’s feminist ideas and calls her work a “very vulgar little novel” in the literary journal Euphonia. As will be explained in detail in chapter one, the reception of women’s writings that stimulated “the Cult of Domesticity” was favourable, even if they focused on the emancipation of young women. When women writers expressed feminist ideas through their writings and went beyond the boundaries of what were considered appropriate genres in feminine novels, they were either disrespected or ignored by the Dutch literary critics. No mention of more militant feminist novels like Man’s Rights (1879) by Annie Denton Cridge and Mizora (1880) by Mary E. Bradley Lane could be found in the Dutch literary journals. While these two first-wave feminist writers are outside of the corpus, their works will be examined to show which women writers were ignored or not considered notable by Dutch critics during first-wave feminism.

For the Dutch reception of American women writers during second-wave feminism I examined all reviews in the Dutch literary press written between 1960 and 19789. In the late nineteenth century, only 34 reviews of women’s writings were published, but it was Stowe and Alcott who each received more than ten reviews during this period. During second-wave feminism 170 reviews of American women’s writings appeared in the Dutch literary

journals, but most of the authors were mentioned only once. I examined the American women writers that were mentioned more than twice during my research, since one review does not provide enough information to talk of the reception of a specific author. Sylvia Plath, Mary McCarthy, Anaïs Nin10, and Erica Jong were the only American women writers that received at least three reviews in this period. Of these, Erica Jong was the first American feminist writer who was esteemed in the Dutch literary journals during second-wave

feminism.

Apart from Erica Jong, hardly any American feminist writers were reviewed in the Dutch literary journals during second-wave feminism. In 1976, a review of Jong’s novel

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Taco Hajo de Beer: (1838-1923) A teacher and translator who wrote books for secondary schools. Between 1855 and 1867 he also wrote novels. He was the cofounder of the journal De Amesterdammer, a liberal and progressive weekly.

9

The proportion of Dutch reviews of American male and female writings between 1960 and 1978 can be found in appendix 1.

10

Anaïs Nin was born in France in 1903, but moved to New York at the age of 36 where she published The

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Fear of Flying (1973) appeared in Dutch Quarterly Review and was fairly positive, for the Dutch literary critic states that it is didactic and entertaining and that “it has notable success” (256). Before the Dutch critics paid attention to Jong’s novel, a few other American second-wave feminist writers were reviewed, but their names only appeared once and the reception of their novels was unfavourable. In 1969, a review of Jacqueline Susann’s feminist novel

The Love Machine (1969) was published in Litterair Paspoort11 and Catherine Ross’ The

Trysting Tower (1966) was reviewed in the same literary journal in 1967, but the literary critics have difficulties accepting the feminist works. Therefore, Erica Jong was the first feminist writer, though not identified as such, who was well-received by the Dutch literary critics during second-wave feminism. In order to examine what the Dutch literary critics considered to be appropriate genres in women’s writings, this paper also discusses the Dutch reception of The Diary of Anaïs Nin (1966) by Nin, The Bell Jar (1963) by Plath, and McCarthy’s The Company She Keeps (1942). American feminist novels like The Female

Man (1975) by Joanna Russ and Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) by Rita Mae Brown could not be found in the Dutch literary journals. While these two second-wave feminist writers are outside of the corpus, their works will be examined to show which women writers were not considered notable by Dutch critics in this period.

The examination of the reception of American feminist writers in Dutch periodicals during first- and second-wave feminism allows a comparison of the selection criteria and literary normativity in the Dutch literary press during first- and second-wave feminism. This paper claims that the way in which critics reacted to American feminist writings was

influenced by the contemporary ideas of gender roles and emancipation, which illustrates that the reception of feminist novels is subject to the spirit of time and thus fluctuates through the years. Moreover, it argues that Alcott and Jong were the earliest well-received feminist authors who expressed their feminist ideas in novels during the two waves of feminism. Even though the contemporary literary critics did not consider Alcott and Jong to express feminist views through their novels, their works can certainly be called feminist writings, which will be discussed in detail in chapter three where the feminist themes of the novels will be analysed. My dissertation claims that these feminist authors were using crafty strategies that outwitted the contemporary anti-feminist Dutch literary critics.

11

Litterair Paspoort was an unconventional literary journal that was founded in 1946. The aim of its editors was to make German literature more popular in Holland. It was a critic and informative journal that solely reviewed foreign novels.

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Chapter One

American women writers during first-wave feminism

Legal and social position of women in nineteenth-century America

In order to analyse the Dutch reception of American feminist writings during first-wave feminism, based on the cultural framework of the social and legal position of women in this period, this chapter discusses the position of American women in the nineteenth century and the Dutch reception of American first-wave feminist writers. By putting the Dutch reception of American female authors in its historical context, I will examine how the contemporary ideas of gender roles and emancipation influenced the reception of feminist writers in this period, and what the Dutch critics considered appropriate genres in women’s writings.

Feminist writers started to give voice to their ideas about the emancipation of women through their writings in the late nineteenth century, but they had a difficult position in the

contemporary literary world.

After the Civil War had ended in 1865, the Industrial Revolution spread across the American nation, changing the social position of upper and middle-class women, whose activities were limited from house and fieldwork, to domestic labour only. As Greta Gray complains in “Changes in the household resulting from the Industrial Revolution” (1932): “They spent more time caring for the house, upon the family clothing, and in cooking. In many cases this has gone to an extreme and houses are in such a state of perfection, there is no comfort living in them” (244). No longer did families produce their basic necessities at home, but the husbands supported their families by working in factories that emerged as a result of steam-power manufacturing. As the husbands were working long hours under rough circumstances away from home, women stayed at home to raise the children, for it was thought that women were delicate and weak creatures, who would not endure the hardships and vulgarity of the industrial spheres. In “Infantile Specimens”, Susan J. Pearson describes the duties of women in the second half of the nineteenth century: “Among middle class families, motherhood was imagined as women’s chief function and as a sacred duty.

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duty of raising republican sons and submissive, pure daughters, which would contribute to a strong American nation. This “republican motherhood” became increasingly popular in the domestic sphere, as Dian M. Blair states:

In the nineteenth century a global and domestic missionary commitment also became more pervasive. Even though such actions took women out of the private spaces of the home, the work was socially sanctioned because it reified women’s prescribed political and patriotic role as “republican mother,” who was committed to civic virtue: she educated her sons for it, condemned and corrected her husband’s lapses from it. (573)

The new ideology of womanhood was spread through church and popular women’s magazines, where domestic duties were promoted, and women were encouraged to be pious and devote their lives to motherhood. In her recent doctoral dissertation Brief Affairs (2009), Els van der Werf states that Godey’s Lady’s Book was “[o]ne of the most typical and

exemplary magazines aimed at women readers” (81). Godey’s Lady’s Book was a popular nineteenth-century magazine that centred on female gender roles. In the issue of February 1850, several poems, hand-tinted fashion plates, and short-stories spread the image of ideal womanhood. On the plate “The Nest At Home” by Mrs. Joseph C. Neal12, we see a woman who caresses two infants. Through the short story that appears with the plate, the audience learns that one of the infants is not her own. It is the child of her late twin-sister, who was stubborn, betrayed her family, and ended as a fallen woman. The woman on the plate considers it her duty to raise her own and her sister’s child, giving them “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit". The plate emphasises the duty of women, their softness, but also the risk to become a fallen woman. In the same issue Reverend B.P. Rogers addresses his audience with a didactic message, pleading that “the capacities and aspirations of the immortal part receive some ministration, and that the moral faculties be cultivated and stimulated, and the generous impulses of the soul be expanded in labours for the best good of those around you [women]”. He emphasises that there is no better beauty than goodness, no greater power than virtue, and that all men appreciate ladies who possess “the beauty of holiness”. Therefore women were advised not to be vain, or to care for fashion, for this would give them a cheerless future.

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The ideology of women that was spread through magazines like Godey’s Lady’s Book strengthened the prevailing view that women by nature were fit only for domestic work. One of the admirable characteristics of a young woman was piety, for being true to God would redeem the world from the sin of Eve. Moreover, women had to be pure in order to keep men in control of their sexual needs, because sexual feelings were thought to be strong in men, but weak in women. Women were advised be submissive, self-sacrificing and dependent, and to fulfil their domestic duties, creating a beautiful, tranquil place where husbands could escape from the rough world of industry and business. In James Fennimore Cooper versus the Cult of

Domesticity (2005), Signe O. Wegener states that this focus on family life is best described as “the Cult of Domesticity”:

And for the early to mid-nineteenth-century American, male and female alike, an important part of this cultural matrix was what can best be termed “the Cult of Domesticity” – a set of values aimed at shaping private and public life in the rapidly changing nation (1); pervasive woman-centred domestic ideals of his [Cooper] day, what I have termed “the Cult of Domesticity”. (34)

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Fist-wave feminism in the United States

Women who no longer accepted social and constitutional inequalities examined masculine ideology and gender politics, and publicly promoted equal rights for all American citizens, which initiated first-wave feminism. American feminists like Victoria Woodhull and Rose Falls Bres advocated women’s suffrage, which resulted in the Nineteenth Amendment that granted women the right to vote in 1919. During the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, men and women gathered together to give voice to American female citizens and to officially state, in the “Declaration of Sentiments”, that men should no longer deprive women of their social and legal rights: “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world” (“Declaration of Sentiments”, 1848). Woodhull was considered one of the leaders of the nineteenth-century women’s movement. She often expressed her concerns about “the injuries and usurpations” towards women in the journal Woodhull and Claflin’s

Weekly, which she founded with her sister Tennessee in 1870.

In the profound first-wave feminist text “The Constitutional Equality the Logical Result of the XIV and XV Amendments” (1870)13, Woodhull critically analyses the amendments and asks her readers: “[w]ho dares to say, in the face of these plainly worded amendments, which have such an unmistakable meaning, that the women of America shall not enjoy their emancipation as well as the black slave?”(4). Another problem of the legal status of female citizens in the United States was the conflicting legislation, which remained a disputed point until the early twentieth century. As Rose Falls Bres states in “Wives and Widows” (1918)14: “A woman may be divorced in one State and held to be not divorced in another State, which means that children may be legitimate in State and deemed illegitimate in another” (45). It was not until 1919, when the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the constitution, that American women were granted the right to vote, for it legally stated that the right to vote could no longer be denied on the account of sex: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” (Nineteenth Amendment, 1919). This change affected women’s social position immediately, as they were no longer denied access to higher education, or to

13

The online Harvard University Library offers the original copy of “The Constitutional Equality the Logical Result of the XIV and XV Amendments” (1870).

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professions like medicine and law. The Nineteenth Amendment can therefore be seen as the most influential victory achieved by first-wave feminists.

Reception of American feminist writers (1867-1881)

Before the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the constitution of the United States, many women writers brought the unequal position of women to public attention in novels,

periodicals, papers, and essays. This paper’s analysis of the Dutch reviews of the American female authors Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Andrews Denison will give a sense of how the Dutch literary reception of American women writers was influenced by the contemporary ideas of gender roles and emancipation. Not only did the critics create clear standards, but they also implicitly stimulated the authors to remain within their

traditional literary field, for when women writers crossed the accepted boundaries, the critics would indirectly discourage the audience from reading the novels.

In Brief Affairs, Els van der Werf states that the popular first-wave American feminist writers Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton stimulated the public debate on the social status of women and investigated strategies of dealing with adultery in their novels while staying within the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable by publishers. However, Van der Werf excludes the feminist writer Louisa May Alcott who was gender-conscious and strongly believed in equal rights for both sexes. After analysing Alcott’s sensation fiction15, Van der Werf claims that:

Alcott did not use the authorial mask of her pseudonym in her sensation fiction to challenge the existing moral standards, nor did she consciously use the rhetoric of sensation fiction to disseminate subversive ideas with regard to the role of women in patriarchal society. (107)

Van der Werf also argues that Alcott wrote moralistic novels that focussed on domesticity to quickly earn a living: “…she came to accept that moralistic stories for young adults was the kind of writing that would bring her the greatest reward, both in terms of payment and recognition” (107). Even though my paper does not analyse Alcott’s sensation fiction and it

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does not reject the idea that Alcott wanted to earn a living by writing, it does argue that she used the success of moralistic stories to express subversive ideas with regard to the role of women in patriarchal society, which runs counter to the argument that was made by Van der Werf.

When researching the Dutch reception of American feminist writers in the nineteenth-century literary world, the Dutch reviews clearly show which contemporary women writers were considered successful and which feminist novels were rejected, or even ignored by literary critics. Only few women writers were reviewed in the Dutch literary journals between 1867 and 1881, of whom Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott are the most

frequently mentioned (appendix 3, table 1). Even though both authors are in favour of the women’s emancipation, the novels of Stowe and Alcott were recommended to the young female audience, for they were thought to encourage their readers to devote their lives to domesticity.

In her writings, Stowe primarily centred on the domestic role of women, which was well-received by the Dutch literary critics. In 1868, a literary critic states that “[s]he wants women to unfold themselves in the domestic domain […] Stowe is different from fanatical feminists who wish to see women leave domestic labour” (Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, 1868). Stowe, who was already well known for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), which was the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century, received nothing but positive reception from Dutch literary critics. In the Dutch reviews between 1867-1873, Stowe is admired for her novels House and Home Papers (1865), Little Foxes (1866), and The Chimney Corner (1868), all of which she published under the pseudonym of Christopher Crawfield. The critics believed House and Home Papers16 to be a clear and realistic depiction of the American domestic sphere, a decent family, and the innate capabilities of housewives. In Het

Leeskabinet17 (1867), the reviewer states that Stowe has “chosen a decent American family as the subject of her observations” (76). In a review of Little Foxes18 in De Tijdspiegel (1868), the literary critic is of the opinion that “[w]ith a clear and correct view […] she [Stowe] penetrates the emotions that stir the domestic and family life” (99).

Apart from the domestic life, Stowe also wrote about the emancipation of young women in the household, which was a delicate subject, as many Dutch literary critics were

16

The title was translated as Ons Huis. 17

Het Leeskabinet was founded in 1834 and was very influential in the 1850’s. It was a magazine for distractive entertainment and mainly contained contemporary Dutch literature and foreign literature translated into Dutch. The magazine was very popular in the 1850’s.

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against the idea of female emancipation. Despite Stowe’s discussion of domestic

emancipation in The Chimney Corner19, the Dutch critics appreciated Stowe because she adopted a strong Christian, moral content. In Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (1868), the literary critic P. Bruijn20 realises that Stowe is pleading for the emancipation of women in The

Chimney Corner: “She wants to see home economics rise from an art to the level of science”, because “the ‘physical’ education of women suffers from great shortcomings” (349-51), but he still praises the author for her novel because it “without any doubt, breathes a healthy Christian mind” (352). The literary critics also agree on Stowe’s positive influence on the female youth, whom she stimulates to dedicate their lives to domesticity, in order to ensure a peaceful and blissful home. In an article in Het Leeskabinet (1869) the critic praises Stowe for positively directing her female audience: “The talented author of Little Foxes has once more shown her blessed gift to lead her younger sisters the right way on the course of life” (131). Overall, the reception of Stowe’s novels in the Dutch literary journals was positive between 1867 and 1873. I conclude that her views on the emancipation of women were not progressive enough to cause the critics concerns, for they believed her work stimulated “the Cult of Domesticity” and dissuaded young women to leave the domestic sphere.

While the majority of Alcott’s popular novels stimulated “the Cult of Domesticity”, like Stowe’s novels, Alcott also paid attention to the ability of independent women to earn a living outside the home, a subject that was rejected by the contemporary Dutch literary critics. Even though the recurring theme of independent women might indicate that Alcott advocated feminism through her works, her novels on family life were well-received by the Dutch literary critics. Between 1873 and 1880, Alcott predominates in the Dutch reviews of American women writers. The reception of Little Women (1868) and Old Fashioned Girls (1870) is generally positive. In Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (1873), Old Fashioned

Girls21 is described as a useful novel for adolescent girls, for it is an amiable novel that offers moral lessons, and teaches women how to confront disappointments in life and how to make sacrifices: “I consider this to be a very amusing and useful story for mature girls, for it can give them many important suggestions about how to direct the heart and mind, as well as their strengths and disappointments” (569). In a literary review of Little Women22in De Gids23

19

The title was translated as Hoekje van de Haard. 20

Pieter Bruijn (1828-1898): He was clergyman until 1862. In 1869 he became the editor of Provinciale

Overijselsche & Zwolsche Courant. 21

The title was translated as Oude en Nieuwe Zeden. 22

The title was translated as Onder Moeder’s Vleugels. 23

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(1877), the Dutch literary critic values the novel on similar grounds, because he believes it will stimulate female readers to become a better person: “…a true brilliant naivety, an excellent simplicity” (425); “It is impossible not to cherish her for her novels and not to become a better person…” (428). In a review of Little Women in Het Leeskabinet (1878), the reviewer states that “Louisa Alcott’s novel is a recommendable gift; they [young women] will find many useful remainders of how to stay faithful to the responsibilities they need to fulfil” (34). The majority of the contemporary Dutch critics considered Alcott to be a generous and warm-hearted woman; they had nothing but a good opinion of the author who encouraged young women to be faithful to their responsibilities.

However, not all reviews of Alcott’s novels are positive, for the literary critic in Het

Leeskabinet (1879) does not appreciate Alcott’s Work: A Story of Experience (1873)24, in which the female protagonist Christie Devon leaves the domestic sphere to become a working woman. He believes that Alcott’s depiction of the protagonist is exaggerated and untrue, for he thinks women cannot be flexible enough to mingle with men and he is convinced that such adaptable women do not exist: “In all continents and countries, such a woman would always be a miracle of adaptability, for a woman who has broad knowledge and education on both the practical and the theoretical field might almost be called a sphinx” (47). Not only does he feel it is unrealistic that women can be as successful as Christie Devon in the novel, but he also rejects Alcott’s depiction of a fallen woman as heroine. Therefore, he is of the opinion that the novel is of vulgar nature and lacks any form of refinement: “The style of this novel is vulgar, the translation bad […] the novel, in its Dutch translation, is all but gracious” (51).

Nevertheless, the critic shows his appreciation for the section where Alcott describes the Quakers family: “The old mother and David, her son, the domestic pictures, the nursery, the pets, the whole is a healthy sketch” (49). The fact that Alcott’s female protagonist is deemed unrealistic and her novel is only favoured for its domestic pictures illustrates that women writers were indirectly stimulated to stay within the literary boundaries and implicitly discouraged to depicted female protagonists who refused to accept their traditional role in society. While the Dutch reviews of Alcott’s other novels were positive, the review of Work:

A Story of Experience shows that even a popular women writer like Alcott could become a target of literary censorship.

should “acknowledge freedom to include respect for anybody’s defensible opinion” (This abstract was found in one of the folders that includes collected information about Dutch literary critics). The journal slowly drifted away from literature to liberal politics during the nineteenth century.

24

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The Dutch reception of Mary Andrews Denison’s feminist novel That Husband of

Mine is another example of literary censorship by Dutch literary critics. The Dutch literary critic T.H de Beer (May 11, 1878) condemns “vulgar” stories like That Husband of Mine (1877) in the literary journal Euphonia, and indirectly discourages Dutch women writers to imitate Denison’s writing style. In this short-story, Denison depicts a woman who describes her husband’s flaws in great detail and emphasises her own virtues: “I knew that Charlie would make a point of pulling every tidy from every chair, and likely as not put his feet on the sofa; but those were things that vexed my soul no longer- not, at least, as I did not witness them: so I set about rearranging my dinner” (8). The literary critic is agitated by Denison’s negative description of the dominant member of the family, for he deems it “a very vulgar little novel” (2). Moreover, this review of That Husband of Mine implietly dissuaded Dutch women writers from writing in a similar style, for the critic states that “when circulating this kind of American literature, it is to be feared that we will soon be intimidated by imitations” (2). This review is another example of disdainful treatment women writers could face when they left the literary standards and critically examined contemporary gender roles in marriage.

The corpus of Dutch reviews of American women writers between 1867 and 1881 offers a clear impression of the position of feminist writers during first-wave feminism. Women who wrote novels that stimulated “the Cult of Domesticity” were well-received by Dutch literary critics, as can be seen in the reception of House and Home Papers; Little

Foxes; The Chimney Corner; Old Fashioned Girls; and Little Women. The authors are being praised for creating decent novels and including moral lessons for young women. However, when they went beyond the contemporary literary standards, as Alcott did in Work: A Story of

Experience and Denison in That Husband of Mine, Dutch critics would publish unfavourable reviews in which they accused the author of writing vulgar and unrealistic novels. Table 1 (appendix 3)25 illustrates how the Dutch literary critics tacitly advised American women writers to remain within the contemporary literary boundaries in an implicit manner.

Authoritative literary critics and progressive first-wave feminist writers

Negative reception was not the only risk women writers were facing when going beyond the contemporary literary boundaries, for several well-known feminist novels were not reviewed

25

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at all in the Dutch literary journals between 1867 and 1881. Nowadays, Sarah Josepha Hale, Margaret Fuller, Sara Willis Parton, Annie Denton Cridge, and Mary E. Bradley Lane are praised for their feminist novels. However, these novels cannot be found in the corpus. I discuss Annie Denton Cridge (1825-1875) and Mary E. Bradley Lane (1844-1920) as examples of women writers who expressed their feminist concerns with social structures through the utopian novel, which was a popular genre during the second half of the nineteenth century, to show what radical feminist messages were ignored by the contemporary Dutch literary critics.

No reviews of the utopian feminist novels Man’s Rights (1879) by Cridge and Mizora (1880) by Lane were published in the Netherlands between 1879 and 1881. Cridge, who was of English origin, emigrated to the Unites States in 1842 where her feminist utopian novels were printed and published. The fact that her novel Man’s Rights does not appear in the Dutch literary reviews either implies that it did not reach the literary critics, or that the literary critics did not want to pay attention to the radical feminist writer because they did not approve of her ideas. The latter seems to be the case, because the name of Mary E. Bradley Lane, who also wrote a feminist utopian novel, does not appear either in the contemporary Dutch literary journals. Because the utopian novel was a popular genre, it seems unlikely that these novels did not reach the Dutch literary critics. I assume that the Dutch literary critics either ignored

Man’s Rights and Mizora because they disapproved of feminist ideas in novels, or that they did not categorise the novels as high literature. I would suggest that the last-mentioned is the least likely, for Denison’s novel That Husband of Mine was reviewed by a contemporary Dutch literary critic, even though he did not deem it a work of high literature.

Both feminist writers used the popular utopian novel to criticise “the Cult of Domesticity” and male superiority, by creating a world in which women dominate and no longer suffer from gender discrimination. However, Cridge and Lane were not the only authors who used the genre to express feminist views, as Justine Larbalestier argues in

Daughters of Earth: “In the late nineteenth century, a few women writers began to explore the idea of a matriarchal society as something potentially utopian, or at least as offering a critical perspective on existing societies” (57). The novel Man’s Rights by Cridge is one of those nineteenth-century feminist utopian novels written by nineteenth-century women writers. In her novel26, Cridge describes a utopian society in which traditional gender roles are reversed, for it is no longer women who have limited opportunities and restrictions forced upon them by

26

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a patriarchal society, but it is men who face social restraints: “…everywhere the respective duties of men and women were reversed; for in every household I found men in aprons, superintending the affairs of the kitchen” (75). Because gender roles are reversed and men are dependent on women, the gentlemen in this matriarchal society experience the same

limitations as women in patriarchal societies: “Oh! My soul was sick with sympathy and pity for that race of poor degraded men! ‘What does it mean?’ I asked myself: ‘why are they in this pitiable condition’” (83). By reversing the social and legal position of men and women in her novel, Cridge stimulates her audience to reflect upon the effects of the contemporary division of gender roles.

Even though Lane also confronts her audience with the limited opportunities of women, men are absent in the world described in Mizora, which proves to be beneficial for women, as they are no longer restrained or discriminated against by men and are allowed to enter higher education. Illegitimacy was a great concern for American women in the

nineteenth century, for it would degrade a lady into a fallen woman, because she had given in to seduction. In “Women Fantasies and Feminist Utopias” (1977), Carol Pearson states: “In feminist utopias, children are never illegitimate, because they all have mothers” (1). Lane created a world where women no longer encounter seduction and shame, for men are no longer part of society: “I noticed with greater surprise than anything had excited in me, the absence of men… There was not a lock or bolt on any door” (28). As in the utopian world in

Man’s Rights, citizens in Mizora use futuristic technology in order to relieve themselves from the burdens of housework, which shows that both Cridge and Lane considered daily domestic tasks to be stressful, time-wasting activities for nineteenth-century women. They wanted women to symbolically “leave the kitchen” in order to regain strength; time for enjoyment; and time for education: “All institutions for instruction were public, as were, also, the books and accessories. […] The state was the beneficent mother who furnished everything, and required of her children only their time and application” (Kessler, 119). The fact that both novels received no reception in Dutch literary journals when they were first published indicates what the Dutch literary critics deemed acceptable borders in nineteenth-century American women’s writings.

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emancipation. Through their reviews, Dutch literary critics stimulated American women writers to remain within the contemporary literary boundaries in an implicit manner. When expressing feminist ideas through literature, a female author was facing unfavourable reception, while women’s writings that portrayed young women who devoted their lives to domesticity were embraced by the Dutch literary world. However, the feminist author Louisa Alcott succeeded in finding a strategy that enabled her to express feminist ideas through her novel, while gaining favourable reviews from Dutch literary critics, for her best-selling novel

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Chapter Two

American women writers during second-wave feminism

Women in post-war America

In order to analyse the Dutch literary reception of American women writers, in the cultural framework of the social and legal position of women during second-wave feminism, this chapter discusses the position of American women prior to this period; the frustrations and goals of second-wave feminists; and the contemporary Dutch reception of American women writers. By putting the Dutch reception of novels by Anaïs Nin, Sylvia Plath, Erica Jong, Mary McCarthy, Jacqueline Susann, and Catherine Ross in its historical context, I will examine how the contemporary ideas of gender roles and emancipation influenced the reception of feminist writers, and what the Dutch critics considered to be appropriate genres in women’s writings between 1960 and 1978. As during first-wave feminism, many feminist writers gave voice to their ideas about female emancipation through their writings in the second half of the twentieth century. However, their position in the literary world continued to be difficult. In order to show what radical feminist messages in literature were ignored by the contemporary Dutch literary critics, I will discuss Joanna Russ (1937- ) and Rita Mae Brown (1944- ) as women writers who expressed their feminist concerns about male chauvinism in science fiction and erotic fiction, which were popular genres at this period in history.

After World War II, American society underwent dramatic changes, which affected the social position of women, for they were dismissed from the labour force and persuaded to return to domesticity and motherhood. In his article “The Good War”, Neil A. Wynn

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though women were no longer bound to domesticity, sex discrimination within the labour force remained an issue. During the war, American women were employed in white-collar occupations that were associated with female labour. However, many women lost their jobs after the war had finished and American soldiers returned from the European fronts. Wynn claims that “wartime employment gains were often temporary – two million women were laid off at the war’s end, and the proportion of women in the labour force fell back down to 29 per cent” (475).

In the following decade, nineteenth-century ideologies of womanhood regained popularity and were promoted through many forms of popular culture. Women were

encouraged to return to domestic life; inventions like the automatic washing machine and the microwave oven would liberate women from tedious duties. In this period women’s

magazines included advertisements that emphasised the benefits of these inventions and the importance of a good housekeeping. In “ Selling the Mechanized Household”, Bonnie J. Fox states that Ladies Home Journal was among the best-selling women’s magazines after World War II: “…compared to similar American women’s magazines, the Journal had the largest audited circulation between 1932 […] and 1961” (28). Fox also includes a table in which she analyses the themes of the magazine between 1909 and 1980. It illustrates that the number of advertisements in favour of housekeeping peaked between 1949 and 1960. Overall, the amount of advertisements in Ladies Home Journal that focused on housework during the 1950’s illustrates that the contemporary image of ideal American womanhood was that of a woman who devoted her life to housekeeping.

Apart from housekeeping, marriage and child caring were increasingly promoted in post-war American women’s magazines.27 The explanation for this can be found in the population growth of the United States in “the US census” (appendix 4), for there was a boom in the population growth in 1946 after it had been negative from 1941 to 1944. This might clarify why women’s magazines started to emphasise the values of the traditional role of women and the importance of family life after the war. Magazines like Ladies Home Journal stimulated women, who had been working in the labour force during the war, to return to their traditional roles in the conservative post-war society. In The Feminine Mystique, Betty

Friedan states that

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We [women] were all vulnerable, homesick, lonely, frightened. A pent-up hunger for marriage, home, and children was felt simultaneously by several different generations, a hunger which in the prosperity of post-war America everyone could suddenly satisfy. (182)

Friedan thus suggests that women were more than happy to return to domesticity after the difficult years of the war. She confirms that advertisements that stimulated what may be called the “second Cult of Domesticity” met the needs of women in the American post-war society.

The sexual revolution and second-wave feminism

In the early years of the 1960’s, liberal bourgeois youth28 in America no longer accepted traditional moralities and started to rebel against the conservative ideas of post-war America with its conventional family life. They advocated individual development, and their ideas of free love29 openly challenged the boundaries of marriage and broke the taboos of adultery, divorce, birth control, and homosexuality. In “Prescribing the Pill”, Beth Bailey argues that the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960’s in particular had an enormous impact on contemporary society: “The historians who are beginning to write the history of the (hetero) sexual changes of that era tend to agree, though in different terms: the birth control pill was central to the behavioural and cultural changes that make up what we still call the sexual revolution” (827). However, the idea of free love originated during first-wave feminism when the pill was not yet invented. As Cathy Gutierrez states in “Sex in the City of God”, feminists like Victoria Woodhull considered marriage to be a form of sexual slavery and advocated sexual freedom for women:

Unrestricted sexual access to one's wife was generally regarded as both a legal and a moral norm. For free love advocates, and Woodhull in particular, the yoke

28

In Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (2007), Tamir Bar-On states that “[a] large group of minority bourgeois youth began to abandon many conventional norms and adopted a number of values diametrically opposed to the dominant, materialistic ethos of Western culture” (73).

29

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of marriage, protected by the state and Christianity, was tantamount to the ownership of women and stood as a deplorable crime on par with slavery. (193)

During the sexual revolution, the idea of free love regained popularity and was spread through contemporary magazines and literature. In 1953, Hugh Hefner founded the Playboy magazine that was well-known for its libertarian attitude towards sexuality. Each issue offered its male audience photographs of scantily clothed women, and included articles and

interviews that dealt with the adapted idea of free love. During the 1960’s and 1970’s the term “free love” was no longer solely used by feminists, but was generally used to break traditional sexual taboos. Men’s magazines like Playboy published stories recommending multiple sexual partners and other forms of sexual freedom. In his article “Illegitimacy, Postwar Psychology, and the Reperiodization of the Sexual Revolution”, Alan Petigny claims that magazines like Playboy stimulated changes in social norms during the 1960’s: “Finally, during the 1960’s, after twenty years of liberalised sexual behaviour and following a decade of Hugh Hefner, rock ‘n roll, steamy novels and racy ads, noticeable changes in social norms appeared” (72). Despite several attempts by European governments to ban erotic literature from the bookshelves in the 1950’s, this genre also gained popularity in the 1960’s. The Dutch literary reviews of American literature show an increase in welcoming reviews of erotic literature from 1960 to 1978. Erotic novels by Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal were among the best-received novels in the 1970’s. Not only had the genre made its way to the bookstores, but it also proved to be the best-selling genre during the sexual revolution.

Although erotic literature was well-received during the 1960’s and 1970’s, not everybody approved of the image of women and female sexuality that was created by male authors of erotic literature. Since Sigmund Freud published his ideas on female sexuality in

On Narcissism (1914), where he describes the development of female sexuality and concludes that women always feel inferior to men because they do not have a penis30, supporters of his popular theory believed that women struggled as individuals with their inherent insufficiency. Jong refers to the popularity of Freudian theories during the sexual revolution in her novel

Fear of Flying: “Now with great ceremony, Vienna was welcoming the analyst back. They were even opening a museum to Freud in his consulting room” (5). Second-wave feminists considered Freud’s theory and the depiction of women in erotic literature to be examples of

30

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the dominant patriarchal society, besides rape and domestic violence. Because second-wave feminists fought against these forms of sexism, they believed in the ideas of free love and supported the sexual revolution, for sexual taboos concerning female sexuality were challenged as well as any other sexual taboo. In “In My Opinion: The Sexual Revolution in Perspective”, Luther G. Baker compares the sexuality of women in the 1890’s with the sexuality of women during the sexual revolution in the United States and states that

[t]here is no doubt that women in 1890 possessed as great a sex capacity as their 1980 counterparts, and some of them acted upon it as well. However, if the majority of them lacked sex desire it was because they had been taught that a "good woman" is asexual. Today's young liberated female has learned that sex is good, desirable, and even that she is somehow deficient as a “total woman”. (298)

Even though women had learned that “sex was good”, this development had perhaps little positive influence on the cultural position of women during the sexual revolution, because women were now objectified as a symbol for sexual satisfaction instead of sexual purity.

During the 1970’s, second-wave feminists promoted sexual, and financial

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Radical and Marxist feminism often focused on the material oppression that resulted from the unpaid status of women’s labor, analysing problems such as the status of married women as property or women’s financial inability to leave abusive husbands. (52)

Moreover, second-wave feminists fought legal injustices towards women, for a common and serious form of domestic violence was legally permitted. Forced sexual intercourse with one’s wife was not seen as a criminal act according to the law at this period in history. In her book

Women and the Law, Ashlyn Kuersten states that: “Most rape statutes enacted before 1970 define rape as forced sexual intercourse with a woman other than one’s wife” (148). The lack of financial independence and constitutional protection in marriage illustrates how difficult it was for battered women to escape domestic violence and explains why feminists advocated freedom of choice. American feminists like Betty Friedan believed that financial

independence would bring an end to the submissive position of women in marriage; as Charlotte Krolokke states in “Three Waves of Feminism”: “The solution they advocated was not necessarily paid work outside the home; indeed, one of their demands was payment for housewives—a kind of citizen’s income—along with representation in public institutions, and so on” (11). Feminists believed that by becoming financially independent, women would gain equality, which would enable them to fight sexism and abuse.

Reception of American feminist writers (1960-1978)

As during first-wave feminism, many American feminist writers expressed their concerns about sexism directed towards women through literature during second-wave feminism, and the reviews in the Dutch literary press remained unfavourable. The analysis of Dutch reviews of the American women writers Anaïs Nin, Sylvia Plath, Erica Jong, Mary McCarthy,

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they were either negatively criticised or not reviewed. However, women writers who did not express progressive feminist ideas through novels would be favoured by the critics,

particularly when they focused on the psychological shaping of a female protagonist and included erotic passages.

During second-wave feminism, the Dutch reception of American women writers was very different from the reception during first-wave feminism. Between 1867 and 1881, only few women writers were reviewed in the Dutch literary journals, but their works received much attention from the critics, for several reviews can be found of just one novel. In the second half of the twentieth century, many American women writers were reviewed by the Dutch literary critics, which shows that they had moved up to a more respectable position in the literary world since first-wave feminism. However, very few feminist writers were reviewed between 1960 and 1978. In this period, Erica Jong was the only well-received feminist author in the Dutch literary journals. Even though the Dutch literary critics paid attention to a wide range of women writers in the literary journals, most of these authors were mentioned only once or twice. In order to create an accurate picture of the reception of women writers during second-wave feminism, I only discuss authors that were reviewed at least three times by the Dutch literary critics. These are the well-received Anaïs Nin, Sylvia Plath, Erica Jong, and Mary McCarthy. Moreover, two unfavourable reviews of The Trysting

Tower (1966) by Catherine Ross and The Love Machine (1969) by Jacqueline Susann will be examined in order to illustrate the discouraging reception of American feminist writings in the Dutch literary world during second-wave feminism.

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Movement, as by the demand for erotic psychological literature and the success of Henry Miller’s novels in the 1960’s.

The reception of The Diary of Anaïs Nin in the Dutch literary journals was favourable. In De Gids (1967), Paul de Wispelaere31 states that “Anaïs gives a detailed description of Miller’s feverish and chaotic routines, and the explosions of his primitive, artistic

temperament” (351). Apparently the audience was interested in the private life of Miller, who was well-known for the explicit erotic scenes in his literature. This review illustrates that, as a woman writer, Nin gained a respectable position in the literary world through the success of her male colleague and partner. The fact that Nin is favoured for her account of Miller’s private life illustrates that the critic believed this theme to be appropriate in contemporary women’s writings. The literary critic Laurens Vancrevel32 reviewed the second volume of The

Diary of Anaïs Nin33in 1968. He discusses Nin’s analytical capacities that are reflected in the novel and praises her for portraying the psychological development of an individual: “It [the novel] reveals the development of a passionate individual who repeatedly questions reality with intelligence and intuition” (Litterair Paspoort, 21). In 1970, Anaïs Nin’s name appeared again in Litterair Paspoort, where the same literary critic reviews her novel The Novel of the

Future (1968) and reminds his audience of the success of The Diary of Anaïs Nin: “The success of The Diary of Anaïs Nin […]: the story of her life that by so many people is

considered to be fiction, a fascinating story in which many ‘realistic’ historical figures play a part” (124). Even though the Dutch literary critics do not elaborate on the explicit erotic passages in Nin’s writings, the favourable reviews illustrate that they accepted her in the dominant-male genre of erotic literature. Moreover, the reviews show that literary critics did not appreciate Nin for her contribution to the Women’s Liberation Movement and even today scholars disagree on Nin’s feminist messages, for some believe that her writings are too much focused on the pleasing of men. As Felber states in her article,

Anais Nin's contribution has often been denigrated for perpetuating the feminine mystique or an essential femininity. Her effort to dish up a creation that would please men, articulated by means of a feminine aesthetic, could be seen as producing a major contradiction in her work. (321)

31

Paul de Wispelaere (1928- ): Flemish author, literary critic, and professor in Dutch literature. 32

Laurens Vancrevel: Dutch author and translator (no more information could be found on Vancrevel). 33

Crafty Feminists

Master Thesis English Language and Culture

University of Groningen

Department of English Language and Culture

Crafty Feminists

American Feminist Writers and the Dutch Literary Press

1867-1881 and 1960-1978

Preface

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

American women writers during first-wave feminism

Chapter Two

American women writers during second-wave feminism