engleski

Women's Essays: Traces of the Past

The aim of this paper is to discuss the modern essay written by women tracing the influence of the past regarding theoretical and literary-historical context. As a literary form, essay has always caused problems. It does not belong to the standard division of genres, which raises question of “anti-genre” because of its subversivity. The essay becomes a “queer” genre contanining elements assimilated from other genres. Being “elite” from the start, not just to a particular social class, but to gender as well, implying experience, knowledge, wisdom and contemplation, it was not generaly addressed to women. How is it that women have embraced this form of writing and begun to claim the essay as a form of their own? The paper regards the relationship between gender and genre from a feminist perspective, tracing the importance and influence of Virginia Woolf’s essays on the contemporary essay written by women.Woolf's essay-writing, which was unjustly neglected for a period of time, consists both of elements reflecting the traditional English essay-writing legacy, and of modernist elements and a range of entirely new and original literary procedures and terms. Analyses of the social, political, artistic and cultural issues of Woolf’s age suggest originality as well as a certain visionariness which impact on modern literary theory even today. In her work, Woolf assimilated tradition and completely new literary procedures. Furthermore, through the issues raised in her personal essays, she established the foundations for studies in women's literature. 2011, the year in which we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the death of Virginia Woolf, offers the perfect opportunity to reconsider the legacy of this famous modernist writer present in the work of contemporary women essayists.

personal essay; feminism; radical essay

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