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Book Cover
Book
Author Greer, Germaine, 1939-

Title Slip-shod sibyls : recognition, rejection and the woman poet / Germaine Greer
Edition First edition
Published London : Viking, 1995

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  809.199287 G8165/S  AVAILABLE
Description xxiv, 517 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm
Contents 1. The muse -- 2. Poet, poetaster, poetess -- 3. The transvestite poet -- 4. The enigma of Sappho -- 5. The rewriting of Katherine Philips -- 6. Did Aphra Behn earn a living by her pen? -- 7. Aphra Behn as ghostwriter -- 8. Rochester's niece -- 9. Wordsworth and Winchilsea : the progress of an error -- 10. Success and the single poet : the sad tale of L.E.L. -- 11. The perversity of Christina Rossetti
Summary "The term 'slip-shod sibyls' is adapted from a gibe of Alexander Pope. It encapsulates the common contempt for the half-educated women who dared to expose themselves in the literary market-place, convinced that they were born poets." "In this collection Germaine Greer argues that the problem is not that women who wrote poetry in English before 1900 were ignored but that, when most women were unable to express themselves in written form at all, and only a tiny minority of them dared to write in metre, the female poet was given undue attention, flattered and exploited only to be rejected and humiliated in her own lifetime and forgotten by posterity." "She argues that as much as we yearn to have women's poetry seriously studied in schools and universities, what has come down to us is not worthy of inclusion in the canon, for all kinds of reasons. In many cases the texts are inauthentic and cannot be relied upon to represent women's work or women's sensibility. In virtually all cases the poetry is intensely derivative and cannot be evaluated by readers who are unfamiliar with the poets' models."--BOOK JACKET
Analysis English poetry By Women
Attitudes
Biography
Overseas item
Poetry
Women
Bibliography Includes bibliography
Notes Also issued online
Subject L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon), 1802-1838.
Sappho, drama, poetry, etc., in fiction
Sappho.
Sappho, active approximately 610 B.C.-approximately 580 B.C
Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689.
Lee, Ann, 1736-1784.
Philips, Katherine, 1632-1664.
Rossetti, Christina Georgina, 1830-1894.
Winchilsea, Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of, 1661-1720.
English poetry -- History and criticism.
English poetry -- Women authors -- History and criticism.
Poetry -- History and criticism.
Women and literature -- History.
Women and literature.
Women poets -- Biography.
Women poets -- Biography.
Women poets -- History.
Women poets, English -- History.
ISBN 0670849146