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Fiction Historical Fiction

Lavinia’s story

I should have known better, muttered Lavinia. I should have known that Rosalía would be able to comply with the American writers’ request for her to find companions in her quest to achieve a career in literature. I’m not unaware of the types of communication used by women in distant times. The types and places, I should add, because gatherings at church events, quilting bees, things of that nature, provided opportunities for discussion without censorship. That’s Feminist Historiography 101.

After all, these English speakers were not concerned about the difference in languages; that could be managed because somebody always could be found who had the linguistic skills that were needed. Rather, these literatas who were committed to certain causes were sincerely interested in the way women’s lives and the lives of different social groups could be improved. They all understood and opposed slavery, and over the centuries more than one authority had compared the slavery by race to slavery by gender. 

Maybe the major impetus for this belief in the equality of all people was religion, but let’s not forget that it wasn’t all down to piety in the face of the Lord. Some religions, such as certain Protestant sects and Quakerism, saw women in a much better light, qualified and justified in taking a leadership position in abusive situations.

[Note to self: Check references already gathered. Add more data from early eighteenth century, when women’s voices were starting to be heard.]

So I accept that Rosalía would certainly have been able to locate other women in Galicia with similar ideas about writing, and I should not have doubted her ability to do that . After all, the salons of the previous century, and some even earlier, were not secrets to anybody. Even the Bluestockings in Britain and the Bas Bleus of France weren’t the first. Germany and Italy had their groups. I don’t know about countries to the north and east, but a bit more research ought to reveal they did.

No, I should not have doubted that Rosalía would be successful in finding Galician women working in the Arts, unless I had too much of the criticism written about her in my head. All those references to a woman from a rural part of Spain who didn’t study and couldn’t have known other languages beyond the two she knew perfectly. I feel embarrassed that I allowed myself into stereotypical thinking, but then not so long ago even female critics still clung to the idea of a suffering poet who wrote of the peasant life in such a painful fashion. Saint Rosalía, they dubbed her, admiring her martyrdom. They missed the irony in her poems and the way she named the culprits for the plight of rural people. They also really missed her criticism of social and economic mores when they termed her novels outdated romanticism. Apparently a woman writer wasn’t capable of irony, much less sarcasm or outright condemnation.

When challenged by her transatlantic correspondents, it’s natural that Rosalía thought of Father Benito Feijóo (1676-1764) from Ourense. He was a leader of the Spanish Enlightenment and is credited with initiating education reform. He was born in Galicia and in the 1770s some of his work was translated into English by an officer of the Royal Navy, John Brett. That added to Feijóo’s prestige. Bacon, Newton, Malebranche, Locke, and numerous others - he cited them all and more besides - and people knew of his erudition. How could an aspiring writer be unaware of him? Impossible. And through him, more reading sources could be discovered. But his Defensa de las mujeres, published in his Teatro crítico universal in 1726, could hardly be overlooked.

 Rosalía read Feijóo’s discursos again, I assume, because she must have read them much earlier, when she began to think seriously about a career. This time, she took more detailed notes. Was he really the initiator of feminism in the country? He’s been credited with that, but one can’t be sure he didn’t have predecessors, maybe they were even foremothers. Rosalía might not have used terms like feminism and foremothers, but she understood their significance.

From Rosalía’s journal, two passages copied from Feijóo’s Defensa de las mujeres:

En grave empeño me pongo. No es ya sólo un vulgo ignorante con quien entro en la contienda: defender a todas las mujeres, viene a ser lo mismo que ofender a casi todos los hombres: pues raro hay que no se interese en la precedencia de su sexo con desestimación del otro. A tanto se ha extendido la opinión común en vilipendio de las mujeres, que apenas admite en ellas cosa buena. En lo moral las llena de defectos, y en lo físico de imperfecciones. Pero donde más fuerza hace, es en la limitación de sus entendimientos. Por esta razón, después de defenderlas…, discurriré más largamente sobre su aptitud para todo género de ciencias, y conocimientos sublimes.  

[This is a serious task. I’m no longer simply entering into battle with the ignorant commonfolk: defending all women is the same as offending most all men: because it’s rare that one becomes interested in the precedence of one’s sex without looking down on the other. Common opinion has become so widespread in defaming women that it can hardly find any good in them. Morally, they are considered defective, and physically, they are full of imperfections. But where it’s strongest is in limiting women’s ability to think. Therefore, after defending them…, I will discuss at greater length their aptitude for all kind of science and sublime knowledge.]

Ya oigo contra nuestro asunto aquella proposición de mucho ruido, y de ninguna verdad, que las mujeres son causa de todos los males. En cuya comprobación hasta los ínfimos de la plebe inculcan a cada paso que la Caba indujo la pérdida de España, y Eva la de todo el mundo.

[I have already heard opposition to our topic, the loudly-proclaimed idea, not based on any truth, that women are the source of all evil. To prove this, down to the humblest person, everyone accuses la Caba of causing Spain’s ruin, and Eve of ruining the world.]

The catalogue provided by the Priest is wide-ranging and illustrates his knowledge of history. He addresses the achievements in many countries, in many fields, in many, eras. Of course Rosalía would be convinced. And she would be hopeful. She could find women after 1726, she knew she could. She was especially interested in Scudery and Gournay, whom Feijóo had included in his lengthy list from over a century before.

[Note to self: Need further information to create timeline for these women, their contacts, etc.]

I know Rosalía was a reader of E.T.A. Hoffmann, and his novella about Scudery was one she wanted to read: Das Fräulein von Scuderi. Erzählung aus dem Zeitalter Ludwig des Vierzehnten (1819). She wouldn’t have called it biofiction, but it was. She left at least one note about the negative portrayal of this educated woman?

Rosalía’s journal 

What sort of woman would lead Hoffmann to write such a thing? Or rather, what sort of writer would find such a satire worth his talent? One who feared a literary woman, I’d suppose.

My story

I too should have known. I knew there were treatises and pamphlets written by women, but hadn’t thought to link them to Rosalía because I had yet to develop a more global perspective. Maybe it was because of language differences; I thought they wouldn’t communicate across long distances. Having been a translator, I should have not let them convince me. So many literatas or bluestockings knew several languages and they too were translators and/or editors. Even Feijóo knew many women were multilingual. 

Rosalía might have liked to know about the historical novels written about Marie de Gournay or the Grimké sisters in this century, but that’s pure speculation on my part.

Right now I’d like to take another look at The Defense of Women to see if any of Feijóo’s sources have been identified. He couldn’t have known about them and their accomplishments if they hadn’t been present in historical documents. Meaning, that women, their knowledge and all, have been around for quite some time, if we know where to look.

January 11, 2025 03:14

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