The fiction of zora neale hurston: an assertion of black womanhood The fiction of zora neale hurston: an assertion of black womanhood

• Main Author: Rita Terezinha Schmidt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2008-04-01
• Series: Ilha do Desterro
• Subjects: English Language; English
• Online Access: http://www.periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/8778
• ISSN: 0101-4846; 2175-8026

Contrary to what official historical records show, recent studies convincingly prove that women have been writing for centuries, in a variety of literary modes and genres. However, an historical examination of the role of woman as writer reveals that she has suffered from the persistent cultural ideal of woman's silence, an invisibility which
 has rendered her works marginal to what the guardians of the great tradition call 'the serious enterprise of art.' Denied legitimacy for so long by a traditional canon which has prescribed standards of literary excellence on the basis of pre-existing social bias, women writers are just beginning to be reviewed in major literary publications, included
 in literary histories and university curricula as a result of the efforts geared to the body of studies in literature which has emerged as an important part of the post-60's upsurge of work in woman's studies, especially in the United States. Contrary to what official historical records show, recent studies convincingly prove that women have been writing for centuries, in a variety of literary modes and genres. However, an historical examination of the role of woman as writer reveals that she has suffered from the persistent cultural ideal of woman's silence, an invisibility which
 has rendered her works marginal to what the guardians of the great tradition call 'the serious enterprise of art.' Denied legitimacy for so long by a traditional canon which has prescribed standards of literary excellence on the basis of pre-existing social bias, women writers are just beginning to be reviewed in major literary publications, included
 in literary histories and university curricula as a result of the efforts geared to the body of studies in literature which has emerged as an important part of the post-60's upsurge of work in woman's studies, especially in the United States.