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Is the pen a
metaphor? Is the art of letters, the masterly execution of
prose and poetry, a creative male gift? Is male sexuality
not just analogically but actually the essence of literary
power? Is the poet’s pen therefore a phallic, and not a
writing, instrument?
The patriarchal notion that the writer fathers his text just
as God fathered the world has been all-pervasive in Western
literary civilization. According to critics too numerous to
cite here, the metaphor is built into the very word author,
by which writer, deity, and pater familias are identified.
Where does such masculine theory of literature leave
literary women? This patriarchal etiology and solitary male
creator have long confused literary women, readers and
writers alike. If the pen is indeed a phallus, with what
utensil may females generate text?
It is less easy to be assured of the genuineness of literary
ability in woman than in men. The moral nature of women, in
its finest and richest development, partakes of some of the
qualities of genius; it assumes, at least, the similitude of
that which in men is the characteristic or accompaniment of
the highest grade of mental inspiration.
Yet critics continue to claim that feminine literature lacks
a strong male thrust. Such male expectations and designs
have long silenced many talented women. With no voice to
speak our dread, no sigh, no speechless woe, we have an
invincible sense of our own autonomy, our own interiority;
we share a sense of our own experience - individually and en
masse.
Before literary women can journey toward autonomy, however,
we must come to terms with the pervasive intellectual
imprisonment and break out of the holding pen--with a hard
thrust and a lot of seminal ink.
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