Every March there is a specially marked date on the calendar. In lilac color Is he March 8, of course, a date to remember the heroines who have opened the way to a more just present and to keep in mind also the heroines who continue to fight to break the glass roofs.
With this date in mind, and being lovers of books, we recover 10 literary icons that had to hide their sex to make their way into a land that was forbidden.
"Literature do not it may be a matter of a woman's life, and do not It should be like that"
It was December 29, 1836 when a young teacher, excited about the poems she had written, decided to send her best material to a reference of her time, the poet Robert Southey, and ask for her opinion on whether she believed those were poems worthy of be published
After three months his answer came. But it was not what I expected. Not because he rated his material negatively. That seemed irrelevant to Southey, who focused his response on other aspects. He said: "Literature cannot be a matter of a woman's life, and should not be so."
The teacher was not defeated by the hostility of her "colleague" and decided to publish equally, under a pseudonym. Such was its success that today we know that teacher as one of the great references in the history of literature: Charlotte Brontë. And since that was not the only case, we present a list of writers who had to survive censorship and machismo through the use of pseudonyms. Do you think you'll meet them all? 😜
1. Charlotte Brontë
Little more must be added to what we already told you. Charlotte's audacity and talent would only be matched by her constancy. His greatest literary success was Jane Eyre but she would be recognized not only as one of the best British novelists but also as one of her best poetic voices.
Do you wonder which was the pseudonym under which he published his work? Currer Bell. Keeping the initial of its authentic name.
2. Emily Brontë
The Brontë sisters were an inexhaustible source of talent. In 1842 Emily traveled to Belgium with Charlotte and there she learned French and German, besides standing out as an excellent pianist. The verses were not bad at all either and he loved walking through the countryside, so his poetic work is full of observations about nature and philosophical reflections. In 1846 he published his first poems, with his sisters and under the pseudonym of Ellis bell.
A year later Emily Brontë would publish her only novel: Wuthering Heights. At the time of its publication the work was well received. Time passed and due to its complexity and depth, the work has become part of the top of universal literature, being compared for its mastery with nothing less than Shakespeare's work. A real achievement of "Ellis Bell".
3. Anne Brontë
And we go with the third of the Brontë sisters, perhaps the least known but no less important was their contribution to the literary world, at a time when being a woman prevented you from opening the door to that universe.
In his case, and again maintaining the initial of his real name, Anne signed as Acton Bell and the work we know her for is Agnes Gray.
It tells us about the life of Agnes, a young woman who in Victorian England is dedicated to being a governess as the only way to make a living that women were allowed back then. The autobiographical character of the work is very remarkable. This is Agnes Gray / Anne Brontë:
«How delicious it would be to become a governess, to go out into the world, to start a new life, to make my own decisions, to develop the faculties that I had not used, to test the abilities that I have and that I do not know, to earn my own salary. No matter what the others said, I was perfectly qualified for the task ».
4. Amantine Aurore Dupin
In the books he signed as George sand. Under that pseudonym is a woman of strong character, a woman who at a time of marked social norms dared to wear men's clothing and who did not deny literature although it was not "women's thing".
With the streets of Paris as context, she was not only a writer but was a journalist and revolutionary, on the side of the Versailles Assembly.
His first novel would see the light in 1831 and he wrote it with Jules Sandeau, from whom he would have taken the last name to create his literary alter ego: George sand.
Under this new name Amantine Aurore Dupin published Indiana (his most famous work, published in 1832), Lélia, The Companion of France, Consuelo, The Dreamy Masters, cultural criticisms or political texts. She was a very prolific author and a very prominent voice in her time.
5. Matilde Cherner
Matilde Cherner was a republican intellectual, of progressive ideas, marked freedom of thought and clear ideological vocation, who began publishing in local newspapers and did not hesitate to write about controversial issues such as women's education, access to university, prostitution or the monarchy
His foray into literature made it under the pseudonym of Rafael Luna and his most famous work is titled Sunset and dawn.
Initially written as a serial for the press, this novel is about monarchy and patriotism, and shows the consequences of historical events on the private life of the characters, especially the feminine ones.
Other works that came out of his pen were Novels that look like dramas (1877), The three laws (1878) Sunset and dawn (1878), María Magdalena: social study (1880), plays or their notable Critical judgement about the Exemplary novels from Cervantes. In addition to writing, she was also a journalist.
6. Mary Anne Evans
He presented himself to the literary world as George Eliot. And it was one of his greatest figures of the late nineteenth century. With Mary Anne Evans the canonical trio of English letters of the time was closed, along with Henry James and Joseph Conrad.
Mary Anne was a prolific author and published works such as Adam Bede, Brother Jacob, The mill next to the Floss, The veil discovered or Middlemarch.
The novel Silas Marner, although it is not the most famous of the author, it does offer us the themes and motives that were most representative in the literary universe of “G. Eliot. " It is a completely psychological novel, full of emotion and complexity even having an essentially simple argument, but which the author will use to describe us with great mastery of the English rural society of the nineteenth century. An example of the purest classical literature.
7. Cecilia Böhl de Faber
Böhl's literature is considered by critics as the link between costumbrismo, the romantic novel and realism … although his role had to be hidden behind the facade of the male pseudonym Fernán Caballero. This alias, formed by two male names, adopted him from the population of the same name existing in Ciudad Real. And although Cecilia spent a good part of her life in Spain, her childhood origins and memories are found in Switzerland and Germany.
Seagull It would be his most famous work. It is the story of the triumph and misfortune of a young woman with a beautiful voice, Gaviota, who achieves a resounding success on the stages of Madrid and Seville and falls in love with a bullfighter who will die in the square. Under this plot, the themes that Cecilia Böhl addresses in her novel are costumbrismo, the abandonment of tradition and rural life for a more comfortable life. A complete portrait of the Spanish society of the 19th century.
A curious fact is that Cecilia did not decide to publish her work until she had been widowed for the third time and her economic precariousness was such that she was forced to try her luck in literature. Today his work Seagull It is a classic work of traditional literature.
8. Colette
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is one of the muses of 20th century French literature, best known in literary circles by the name of Gauthier.
Few women were accepted at the time at the Goncourt Academy. Colette came to preside. Its beginnings were not easy, however. Although she wrote from a young age, she did not even use a pseudonym because her first husband supplanted her and her texts were signed with the name of her first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars, "Willy."
In time, he received the right recognition and came to preside over the Goncourt Academy or to receive the French Legion of Honor, being the only writer to get it.
If you want to know more about this great figure of French culture, we strongly recommend that you read The blue fanal, his memories. It is a book full of wisdom, inheritance of a woman who had accumulated a deep knowledge of the human condition.
9. Louisa May Alcott
Now his name is well known, since his work Little Women It is an essential classic both in literature and in its film adaptation –In addition to having been one of the strong bets for the last Oscars, in the version of director Greta Gerwig.
Everything was not that easy. Louisa May Alcott, fearing not to be taken seriously if she published with her real name, wrote her first works under the pseudonym of A. M. Barnard.
With that alias he wrote stories and what in the Victorian era was known as "melodramatic stories", stories starring ambitious people who did not hesitate to use revenge to settle their debts. These were texts with an unusual point of view, with extraordinary literary finesse and dealing with unusual topics such as adultery or incest. In fact in his great work Little Women He mentions the melodramatic stories and Alcott writes: "They can be dangerous for small minds."
After having written many stories, of different types and with more than remarkable success, it is interesting to note that the author struggled to publish her great novel with her real name, perhaps intuiting the transcendence that Little Women He would have for his career. And for the history of literature, finally.
10. Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's name is indisputably linked to that of Frankenstein. This story meant the birth of one of the most important creatures in the horror universe and that still today is still part of our collective imagination.
The birth of this character is no less interesting. It was May 1816 when Mary Shelley was vacationing in Villa Diodati, next to Lake Geneva, in the company of the poet Lord Byron, the young doctor John Polidori and her husband the poet Percy Shelley. One night they decided to make a competition of terrifying stories and from the pen of Mary Shelley the creature came out today we all know, Frankenstein.
The story was born from a dream that the writer had had the night before and decided to take advantage to win the literary challenge. Then he published it under anonymous authorship. The society of that time took for granted that such a terrifying story could not have been written by Mary, but it had to be the pen of her husband Percy Shelley that was behind that horrendous story.
These 10 writers, then, show that literature can be a matter of a woman's life and that it should be. And if you are looking for more readings for Empower you this March 8, do not miss our selection! It is full of literary heroines that will discover another way of seeing things.
