Context: Female Writers

Question 1

What was the victorian sociotel view on women as authors?

Answer 1

Victorians saw poetry as ‘too high and great’ for women. They also believed that womens literature was ‘too political’ and ‘too feminist’ to be considered worthy literature.

Question 2

How old was Feicia Hemans when she published her first poetry book, and how many more did she go on to publish?

Answer 2

14 years old. She published eighteen more throughout the course of her life.

Question 3

How was Felicia Hemans deemed invalid by society?

Answer 3

She had six children to support after separating from her husband.

Question 4

What is Hemans main themes for her poems.

Answer 4

Motherhood, marriage, grief and love.

Question 5

What are two of Felicia Hemans main publications from when Rossetti was alive?

Answer 5

Records of Woman (1830)
Songs of the Affections (1866)

Question 6

What did Felicia Hemans write about in Records of Woman?

Answer 6

She focuses on heroines from over the world, from Joan of Arc to an unknown Indian woman. She celebrates the courage, passion and love of women.

Question 7

When did Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L) start publishing her poetry?

Answer 7

When she was 18. (1820)

Question 8

What type of literature of L.E.L’s was well recieved at the time?

Answer 8

Her long narrative poems. (The Improvisatrice, The Troubadour and The Golden Violet)

Question 9

In what year did L.E.L marry a governor of the Gold Coast, and why?

Answer 9

To escape scandal.

Question 10

What was L.E.L’s husband notorious for?

Answer 10

His cruelty.

Question 11

How long had L.E.L been living in Africa until she was found dead?

Answer 11

Three months.

Question 12

How was L.E.L found dead?

Answer 12

With a bottle of prussic acid in her hand.

Question 13

How old was L.E.L when she died?

Answer 13

36. 1802-1838

Question 14

In what ways is it evident that L.E.L inspired Rossetti’s poetry?

Answer 14

Many of her poems explore difficulties faced by women and discuss the issue of women’s fame.

Question 15

What poem did Rossetti write in honour of L.E.L and why?

Answer 15

L.E.L was the title of the poem and it was written as a response to Brownings poem with the same focus.

Question 16

By what age had Elizabeth Barrett Browning written complex and accomplished poetry?

Answer 16

Twelve.

Question 17

What classical texts had Elizabeth Barrett Browning read at an early age?

Answer 17

Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

Question 18

Similarly to other female authors of the time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was deemed invalid, but why?

Answer 18

She fell seriously ill at the age of 20, and spent the rest of her life battling her poor health.

Question 19

What impact did Browning have on Rossetti’s poetry?

Answer 19

Rossetti called Browning ‘The Great Poetess’. Rossetti ackowledges Browning’s influence on her poetry in her 1881 preface to the sonnet sequence ‘Monna Innominata’.

Question 20

What did Rossetti want to do, to which Brownings husband refused?

Answer 20

Rossetti wanted to write a biography about Browning, to which Robert Browning (poet) objected.

Question 21

When and where was Augusta Webster born?

Answer 21

In Poole in 1837.

Question 22

What was Webster’s education like?

Answer 22

Her education was informal however, she studied at the Cambridge School of Arts.

Question 23

When was Webster’s first volume published, and who were they published with?

Answer 23

In 1860 with her husband, under the psyeudonym Cecil Home.

Question 24

How many volumes of verse did Webster publish under her married name?

Answer 24

Five. They established her as a unique name in victorian poetry: (Dramatic Studies 1866, A Woman Sold 1867, Portraits 1870)

Question 25

How are Webster’s novels and plays recieved today?

Answer 25

Although successful in the 19th Century, they are less popular today.

Question 26

What contriversial topic does Webster talk about in ‘The Castaway 1870’?

Answer 26

Prostitution.

Question 27

How was Rossetti influenced by Webster?

Answer 27

By current discourses on social problems. Webster was particularly concerned with the welfare of women who wanted to come out of prostitution.

Question 28

When did the Bronte sisters publish their first volume of poetry?

Answer 28

May 1846.

Question 29

Under what pseudonyms did the Bronte sisters publish their works?

Answer 29

Currer Bell (Charlotte)
Ellis Bell (Emily)
Acton Bell (Anne)

Question 30

How were the pseudonyms beneficial for the Bronte sisters?

Answer 30

It prtected them from male critics.

Question 31

How did Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) begin writing?

Answer 31

As an assistiant editor in the radical journal ‘Westminster Review’.

Question 32

How did Mary Ann Evans adopt her pseudonym?

Answer 32

Under the encouragement of her lover, George Henry Lewes who influenced her to beginn writing fiction.

Question 33

What factors prompted Mary Ann Evans to publish under a pseudonym?

Answer 33

To avoid female steryotyping under a male alias.

Question 34

How did Mary Ann Evans influence Rossetti in her writing?

Answer 34

With her politically astute thinking.

Question 35

What is Harriet Martineau known as?

Answer 35

The first female sociologist. She was a social theorist.

Question 36

Name 5 types of Harriet Martineau’s written works.

Answer 36

Novelist, translator, reviewer, journalist, children’s
author, personal correspondent, political campaigner, travel writer,
pamphleteer, memoirist and historian.

Question 37

What was unique as Harriet Martineau as a female author of the time?

Answer 37

She earnt enough money to support herself financially.

Question 38

How many copies of ‘Illustrations of a Social Economy’ did Harriet Martineau sell?

Answer 38

Ten thousand, that outstripped that of Charles Dickens.

Question 39

What did Martineau advocate for?

Answer 39

Womens rights, abolition of slavery, religious tolerance, and the struggle of the common worker.

Question 40

What was Martineau’s contriversial view on femenist authors?

Answer 40

She disaproved of femenists who drew attention to their personal lives in their work.