December 3

, 1996

WOE

Victorian Women Writers

By Cindy Venema

People believe that writ- ing is a way to free the soul; to communicate on paper what is hard to communicate in speech. Novels, therefore, are their creator's subconscious desires and fears. Not neces- sarily, many writers will ar- gue that their novels are purely written as entertainment or as criticism notas representations of their inner feelings.

Patricia Srebrnik, an associate professor at the Uni- versity of Calgary inaugurated the Women's Studies speak- ers series at UPEI. On No- vember 21 she delivered an essay entitled "Women's Writ- ing and Symptomatic Read- ing in Victorian England", which discussed how Victo- rian women writers were vic- tims to a new type of psychoa- nalysis: an analysis of their psyches through their litera- ture.

Women's texts were treated as books of symptoms. This type of examination is termed by Srebrnik as "Symp- tomatic Reading". Victorian women were uncomfortable with the symptomatic reader- ship. They preferred to be read sympathetically, where the reader regards the work with sympathetic relief be- cause there are others with the same problems as themselves.

"Many women novel- ists stopped writing" Srebrnik explained, because after com- pleting one or two novels they could not handle the personal evaluations contrived from their literature.

Srebrnik used case stud- ies of several vittorian female writers as evidence to the ex- istence of symptomatic read- ing. Her primary example was Margaret Oliphant.

Oliphant lived from 1828 to 1897. Her husband died of consumption, leaving her with three children to raise

alone. She supported her fam-

ily by publishing many writ- ings. She wrote fiction, biog- raphies and reviews, and even- tually became the author of over more than 100 works(The Bloomsbury Guide to Wom- an's Literature).

Oliphant was a profes- sional writer; she had to write fiction; she had to write litera- ture that would sell. She was an author, mother, anda Chris- tian. Because she had to write to support herself, she was compelled to write scores of popular romances.

She had a great fear of symptomatic reading; there- fore, Oliphant struggled not to write anything about her own life.

Oliphant was a modest woman, but when all her chil- dren died prematurely, she struggled with her views of christianity. Finally, she felt obligated to write an autobi- ography, an autobiography of confessions. But she would not publish her work until one third of the text was deleted, mostly her thoughts on God. "She unconsciously defended herself from the symptomatic reader and at another level God" Srebrnik explained.

For a long time women had been writing to a female audience, they never expected male readership. Men read women's writing differently than how women read their fellow sex's literature. The male criticism of a woman's work was similar to how a doctor would examine a fe- male patient for oppressed desires, alluding to the 1880's hysteria where most female patients were treated for hys-

“teria.

Women writers were victims to condescending re- views. One review claimed, "Women should write clearly and artlessly”. .

A group of women known as "new women" re- sponded to the dangers of symptomatic reading. aber

abandoned obscurity, and con- sequently were constantly un- der attack, as one reviewer stated, "New women writers are insane", and another re- view of new women described their writing to be filled with "discontent and disillusion- ment without any conceal- ment".

Victorian men re- spected George Eliot's writ- ings. Her writings show ob- jectivity, rationality and edu- cation; therefore, men were able to regard her literature as masterful. Oliphant, however, was disappointed with Eliot's writings. She saw them as "hidden behind a male voice".

Like Eliot, many women resorted to assuming

-masculine styles, publishing

their essays anonymously, and thereby avoiding symptomatic reading and gaining respected reading.

Women victorian writ- ers were left with two choices: write in the female, in truth, and then accept symptomatic criticisms; or write in the mas- culine, in semi-truth, and avoid symptomatic criticisms.

Professor Patricia Srebrnik presented an in- formative lecture on Wom- en's writing in the Victorian period. She showed how women were read as case stud- ies, and how they had to over- come this critical obstacle to gain respect and the freedom to write in truth.

Srebrnik is currently on sabbatical and is spending her year on Prince Edward Island. Dr.Irene Gammel, English professor at UPEI, stated "Patricia Srebrnik is one of Canada's top Victorianists, and we are happy to have her on the Island".

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