The Unappreciated Female Writers Who Invented the Novel | It’s Lit
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2021
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The guy typically credited with inventing what we know as the modern novel was Miguel de Cervantes with his cumbersome 800+ page book, Don Quixote. But what if I told you that the real antecedent for the modern novel was created by… ladies.
Before the rise of what would become the modern novel, there was Amatory fiction. Amatory fiction was a genre of fiction that became popular in Britain in the late 17th century and early 18th century. As its name implies, amatory fiction is preoccupied with sexual love and romance. Most of its works were short stories, it was dominated by women, and women were the ones responsible for sharing and promoting their own work.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres, and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
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Y'all. You HAVE to read Fantomina. The *shade* thrown at men in that story is unreal. It's not very long and it's hilarious; I promise you won't regret it.
Thanks!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantomina#Plot_summary
Disguising herself as four different women sounds like some weird social experiment in seeing how men react to different kind of women. I’m sold!
@@MadHatter42 It does include a lot of social commentary! Not explicitly, of course, since our heroine is much more concerned with Getting That D than examining the sociopolitical structures she’s manipulating in pursuit of her objective…
@@amphitheatreparkway Asking the reader to look beneath the surface and read the social forces at work behind the characters? Scandalous!
@ampitheatreparkway, so, basically, it is feminism/female heterophobe promotion that disguises itself as a book?
I have also seen credit given to Murasaki Shikibu (another woman) with The Tale of Genji, in the 11th century. In terms of genre it’s basically an epic romance, but its narrative structure is a bit odd compared with how we conceptualize novels nowadays. I actually read it back in undergrad, it’s not like any other book I have read. And, like the novels mentioned in the video, it is pretty open in terms of sexuality, in its own way.
It became a foundational work of Japanese literature, studied by Japanese literature scholars since it was first published, basically. It also is important for historians and anthropologists because of how it paints a picture of Japanese court life during the Heian Period.
Yes, this!
She is specifically talking about English novels. How did you miss this?
@@tananario Because the video title is very general. It doesn't specifically address English novels, even though the content of the video itself does.
Dion Quixote isn’t English either
Cool. While I have this book in my collection, I have yet to read it. Thanks for the reminder!
She's using her book to debase my image! This character is totally me!
So... you're confirming on a public stage this character and her actions is indicative of your conduct?
YE-wait... I retract my complaint.
I agree that if the book's defamatory statements about Sarah Churchill were true statements, and if Churchill were suing Delarivier Manley for libel, then Churchill would have been playing a dangerous game of chicken with Manley. And, your comment is funny. :)
A few small things change the perspective. First, Manley was not being sued in civil court for libel (defamation). She was charged in criminal court with the crime of seditious libel. If she were found liable for libel in a civil law suit, the court could only take away Manley's property: i.e., order her to pay money to the plaintiff and order the destruction of the books. If she were found guilty of the crime of seditious libel, however, the court could take away her property and her freedom.
The charges were supposedly only concerned with the false statements (defamation) that incited insurrection. The prosecutor charged libel by claiming Manley's books had "many false, malitious [sic] and scandalous" statements. He charged it as seditious libel because the allegedly defamatory statements were allegedly about people in the government ("Several of the Queen’s Liege Subjects") and because the books allegedly caused unlawful rebellion against the government ("Disturbance of the publick [sic] Peace and Quiet of Her Majesty’s Government").
Because this was a criminal case, Sarah Churchill could not control whether or not charges were initiated, and she could not control whether or not the charges were withdrawn without trial.
To prove that a satirical book with fictionalized names was defamatory, the prosecutor would need to prove that the damaging statements were false and that the other (non-damaging) statements were so similar to the truth that the fictional characters were describing a real person. It's a difficult balance.
If the prosecutor had all of the actual facts and he had proved them at trial, then, under the law of the time, she might have been convicted. (The law was an unjust law, it was only about politics, the prosector would have had to bend some truths, the jury (if there was a jury) might have voted in her favor, and the judge might have had to misapply the seditious libel law, which regularly happened at that time and for the next 100 years.) But, the prosecutor didn't have strong evidence and seems to have assumed that Delarivier Manley, a woman, would confess everything after being arrested and interrogated. He was very wrong. The court "discharged without conviction" the charges. (That's close to, but not the equivalent of, not-guilty in the contemporary world, especially because the court could, and did, impose a fine on her.)
[I thought, "I'll just quickly write a short comment." I was very wrong.]
@@HunterHogan Thanks for that much needed nuance
Carmen San Diego taught me that 'The Tale of Genji' (also written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu) was the first novel.
Yes! Was looking for this! This and The Pillow Book, written by a contemporary. More of a diary, but also one of the oldest surviving manuscripts. These books are so old, they need to be translated by a specialist.
@@lyndsaybrown8471 The Tale of Genji has an excellent translation by Royall Tyler that goes to great lengths to preserve the original writing style. Proper names are seldom actually used in the novel (it was considered disrespectful to do so, so only titles were used, and this goes for her name too, which means Lady Murasaki), whereas previous translations had made use of the traditional “fan names” for characters. Earlier translations had been abridged as well.
Same here!
Yes, but that's why Lindsay qualified she's talking about the first *modern* novel.
A manga I read in high school that was a retelling of that actually taught me that, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who pointed that out!
Slightly disappointed we didn't get to hear about Aphra Behn's career in espionage.
And now I am too...
You don't understand how much I need that Meg shirt though.
I always thought murasaki shikibu created the first novel, by modern definitions. It would be so incredible to see her historical distinctions be showcased and praised more.
Aphra Behn, my gal! The first term paper I wrote for university was about Oroonoko!
I was hoping Lindsay would mention Oroonoko.
One of mine too!
Don Quixote is a very wise and funny book, if you read it at the right age. It's a rich painting of 16th century Spain. Glad to have you back, Lindsay.
Don Quixote was the deadpool of his time. Making fun of chivalry books of its time.
What’s even more hilarious is that, according to Today I Found Out, chivalry never even existed. Whenever a Knight went out and “rescued” a woman from danger, odds are that in reality he was raping her.
@@GabyGeorge1996 Surely you are forgetting the flower and crown jewel of knighthood who assuages grievances, repels wickedness, and is an emissary of light and righteousness to all. El Quixote is the most chaste and chivalrous knight in history!
I never thought of it that way but you're SO right!
But don Quixote is funny
Murasaki Shikibu: Am I a joke to you?
I think the distinction being made is that the modern prose novel in Europe developed independently from the prose novel tradition of Japan due to Japan's insularity at the time. Genji wasn't known in England outside of academia until the first translation happened in the late 1800s.
So once Don Quijote was published in 1605, the concept of not having to write everything in poetry exploded throughout Europe ("ya mean I don't have to think of a fancy rhyme for let's shag in the parlor? Brilliant!") and by the late 1600s in England these women were publishing prose fiction. But because slutty prostitute pens couldn't be credited with writing the first English novel, the credit goes to Defoe, who published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, and that is still how it is taught today.
@@cincocats320 Thanks for this. I also wasn't sure why Murasaki wasn't mentioned.
I studied these women for my undergraduate degree. Pretty fun stuff and very critical of gender roles.
Yeah, they were all covered in my required undergrad classes as well. And I contrived to mainly read female novelists for the rest of my degree. Little racial diversity, but I gather that's starting to change.
I'm kind of upset now that I earned an English degree and am only just now hearing of these authors.
Was it composition or literature?
Two possible explanations.
"Good stuff is never forgotten, so if it's forgotten it must be objectively garbage."
"There's no accounting for taste, and great works of the past are continually lost and rediscovered. The subset of English novels you learned for your degree are a somewhat arbitrary part to the complete history of the English novel, possibly with a bit of identity-sensitive censorship with its thumb on the scales."
Then you should have your degree taken away.
@@briancundiff5282 oh, I suppose undergrad students are now responsible for designing their own curriculums? Don't be an idiot. If it wasn't taught, that's hardly my fault.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 both. English, Rhetoric and Discourse Studies, called English and Professional Writing when I first started the program. The name was changed halfway though (and not for the better, IMO)
It's interesting, I don't know if it's just that theatre history is taught more inclusively than novels are in places I've studied, but I feel like Aphra Behn is studied a lot as a playwright, just not so much as a novelist. (It seems like she also wrote a lot more plays than novels.)
Yeah, I am theatre student myself and I had heard of Aphra Behn before.
Weird! My degree is in theatre in England and Aphra Behn was never mentioned. Are you in the UK too? I wouldn't say she's especially popular here atm
@@louisee7339 no, US. I did a report on her in high school and she came up in theatre history in college, not a ton but we all knew who she was if we were doing theatre history. But that's just my experience, I'm sure lots of schools are different.
This is great but I wish you had mentioned that some of their writing went beyond Amatory fiction. Aphra Behn's novel(la) Oroonoko is both one of the first novels and is a slave rebellion narrative more than a love story. It surely is one of the earliest examples of abolitionist fiction to come out of the African/American slave trade. Also, she was a spy which is kind of awesome.
Also literally the work she is most known for. These Storied videos are honestly not very good...
My problem with Woolf was that she was a condescending classist (referring to Joyce's work as "mongrel" and "underbred".)
Yeah I love Woolfs work but I’m reading her diary right now and I definitely noticed that. I also love Joyce (especially Ulysses) and had to raise my eyebrow at her opinions on how she referred to Joyce as a “self taught working man” in a derisive way.
@@maristiller4033 She had so many tragedies in her life that you would think it would have engendered more sympathy for others, but evidently she had a bit of a prejudice against, as you said, "workingmen".
@@falgalhutkinsmarzcal3962 Exactly! I find it so hard to believe that people like Woolf, someone who was absolutely prejudiced against as a bisexual woman could turn around and be just as prejudiced to someone else. I guess lack of class consciousness really is a disease.
@@maristiller4033 and she lost her favorite brother to a tragic early death and was sexually abused by her half-brother. Maybe she was insecure about her own standing as a writer and that insecurity manifested as classist scorn. I don't know. I still love The Waves and am able to overlook her human foibles, but it still sticks in my craw, being from a working class family myself.
@@maristiller4033 In my encounters I don't find any direct relationship between being mistreated and treating others generously. Plenty of people get bit and pay it forward however they can!
Coming from you, Lindsay, the information has a completely different feel in my mind! You're awesome!
Lindsey I love you, but when are you and Princess going to tag team a video again? That’s still my favorite video!
Don't forget about non-English women writers from around the same time period, like for instance:
Madame de Lafayette (her novels The Princess of Cleves and The Princesse de Montpensier are available in English translation at Gutenberg)
Mademoiselle de Scudery (wrote one of the longest novels ever written, at 2.1 million words. I think some of her work can be found at the Internet Archive. She's also the main character of an early 19th century detective tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann and a main character in an early 20th century novel by Hope Mirrlees, whose Lud-in-the-Mist is an amazing pre-Tolkien fantasy tale btw)
Please continue with more suggestions if you have some!
So good to see, Lindsey. Can't wait to hear your take on a new topic. Also that is a great shirt!
All this reminds me fanfic from audience to the writers to the dismissals.
Now that you mention it, yeah. Fanfic has some stigma lol
Love this focus on this angle of literature, am excited to see what else comes out of this line of inquiry xD
Lindsay! I love you're presenting this one!
Some amazing literary history I knew nothing about. Thank you for this!
In my uni we were taught the first novel was the Tale of Gengi.
Ah,.. thank you.. I was sitting here this whole video trying to remember why I had heard of Aphra Behn (a rather interesting name, inherently) and you solved it at the end for me. whew.. I would have, probably, driven myself crazy trying to recollect, but would not have remembered to go for Woolf!
Thanks for an incredibly informative video, and for solving the dilemma that you had posed by naming Behn early on! :)
OMG I love this video Lindsy.
Ahh I did my undergraduate thesis on this topic! So cool.
Great video but I don't know why you had to hate on Quixote... which was also earlier than these ladies' work according to the video
Exactly, "cumbersome" is one of the worst descriptions I've ever heard of Cervantes' work. Hard to believe anyone who's sat down with Quixote would find it so.
I would've liked more on Aphra Behn, since she was the first English woman to earn her living by the pen. The Rover is a terrific play.
Murasaki Shikibu enters the chat
Yes'm
It would have been really helpful to define the essential aspects of a novel that we're saying were first seen in amatory fiction; the "first novel" is such a subjective idea. I initially perceived this as dismissing Cervantes based on time, but it seems like he was writing before these writers, so I didn't really get the argument of what makes their work more novel than his, or Tale of Genji, or any of the many other works that get presented as inventing the novel.
I need Lindsay's shirt!!
The novel is far older than what is presented here. There is for example 'The Tale of Genji' by Murasaki Shikibu written in the 11th century, or the Greek story "Chaereas and Callirhoe" which was written in 123 AD or its Latin contemporary "The Golden Ass" by Apuleius, these are arguably some of the oldest examples!
Does One Thousand and One Nights count as a novel?
I mean, she did say "modern novel"
@@rafaela00002 Regardless of what the presenter says, when the title of the video includes the line "Writers Who INVENTED the Novel" it makes the whole video willfully misleading and grossly incorrect!
@@SKH-kg1xw I'm sorry but i don't know.
@@TheGigashadow yeah that's true :/
I learned a lot. As an aspiring author this shed more light on the history of the craft 😎👏👏
I've craved more Lindsay content.
Hey Lindsey havent seen ya since the last video on your channel its awesome your on this channel as well
Welcome back Lindsay!
Woo! Lindsay Ellis content!
My day just got better!
Great video. Confusion rising from subjective interpretations of the title aside :)
Yay! Lindsay Ellis is back!
I support this perspective. Library science is impacted by this as well. Special Collections protect these secrets. Get in to your Library and read!
*Looks at my collection of Eliza Haywood and Aphra Behn stories*
I'm excited for this video.
I can only hope to someday be called something as awesome as "prostitutes of the pen".
I see. So a prerequisite to join this distinguished group is to have cool headwear.
😳😂
I learned quite a lot from this one!
Amatory fiction sounds interesting but where are the links for online reading? All those dead author ladies would have LOVED it if you had directed readers to their works!
You could try Project Gutenbrg. It's a public domain website for stories.
@@sakunaruful i did a quick search there and on archive.org with no quick results. when i recommend something I like to follow up with easy access links. In person i just buy them the book and gift it out. and before you ask, the answer is "no", people do not like books as presents!
@@graphosxp I see. I'll remember to include a link next time.
@@graphosxp you need better friends. I love books as presents!
@@sakunaruful LOL! I did not mean you silly, so very sorry for the misunderstanding! I was just talking about the channel creators. since they already did the research anyways i'd appreciate the sources links, if possible and legal of course :)
I need to know where the "I'm A Damsel, I'm In Distress, I Got This" t-shirt is from, I love it!
I read Love in Excess in my Development of the Novel class in college, so ar least some professors are teaching those works from that perspective.
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego told me the first novel was written by Lady Murasaki.
Pretty weird that you didn't bring up the Tale of Genji. Kinda thought that's what this video would be.
I love your shirt!
I'm glad I saw a few comments here about Lady Murasaki and The Tale of Genji -- I've always considered that the first novel =]
Timothy Morton has a great lecture series (free on youtbe) about Romanticism that details how important the Bronte sisters use of a characters' internal dialogue was, the use of quotation marks, and how representative it was of the political and cultural upheavals of the time. truly fascinating
The first novellist is Japanese noble woman 1000+ years ago. 'The Tale of Genji' by Murasaki Shikibu.
Great video! But can someone tell me why one of the author ladies' faces was shadowed out?
Honestly, if anyone can, READ FANTOMINA! It is very short, the language is NOT difficult and it is very spicy and interesting! Lindsay didn't do it justice here, it is VERY good
She was a *favourite" of the Queen
;)
Love the Meg shirt
what about lady murasaki????
A book I haven't seen mentioned here as probably the first novel is Lucian of Samoasata's "A True Story" (2nd century Ad). Pretty interesting stuff with interstellar battles and tribes of fish people living inside a huge whale. The title is programmatic as the story revolves thematically around truth and lies and is thus pretty modern even in that regard.
I read the title of this video and thought Murasaki Shibiku was going to be mentioned at some point. She wasn't, but I still learned something new, so I'm good.
I LOVE her so much!
Love ya Lindsay!
Nothing like the feel of a book in your ✋😁
I was expecting references to rip from the headlines law and order and the Dum Dum sound 😀
maria edgeworth is another amazing satirist. great video
When I saw the title of the video I thought she was going to talk about Hikaru no Genji or other works of the same ilk. Maybe in part 2
The best part of teaching the 18th Century! Thanks for making this video 😊. I shall share w my students, EXCEPT Beauplaisir does NOT offer to marry the young lady-he offers to take her baby and pay for it to be brought up by others. She and her mother refuse.
Off to read some historic smut.
me: aw yeah time for the tale of genji
...
me: why are they not talking about the tale of genji
so happy to see lindsay!!!
"Invented" is misleading. It goes far back before the 18th century. The first known novel was indeed from a woman, but it was about a thousand years ago. In the early 11th century, Lady Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji. Now is a great time to discover it too, since we here in the west had no reliable translation of it till just this last century. Edit: Now I see you've described Don Quixote as "cumbersome" in your description box, and so perhaps you would not appreciate the first novel by a woman, since it is very long and complicated (without being slow). What a strangely narrow view of that book which has inspired countless people through time.
excuse me, what about Genji monogatari and Murasaki Shikibu.
Exactly!
Was about to say that, although Chinese literature has even older novels.
Plus, other Non-English language works such as La Princesse de Clèves by the French author Madame de La Fayette
Yes!
Anyone know the song playing at 6:58?
Can you do Centaurs and the Minotaur
Thanks.
Limited perspective here, but had a thought. You mention Robinson Crusoe and Guliver's Travels as same era works that are still popularly read. Thing is, growing up those were presented (in their edited forms) as children's literature, not something an adult would read. I don't now how common that presentation of them is, but could that be why these other works aren't as well known? What I mean is, Guliver's Travels has the sex scenes snipped out and is prevented as an adventure story for children, and has survived at least in part on that basis. Would these texts have survived a similar treatment?
I was never shown anything of these women’s work in Australia, everything was only Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and Shakespeare. Most of the old writers I found out on my own or from friends who had gone to university, but that was only a way to Virginia Woolf.
Jane Austen and Emily Bronte through the BBC show dramas and I was not a fan because of being such a tomboy, but in later years I read them all and I understand that the books are not love tales like some girls in high school think they are.
Lindsay: ... and ends up smothering him...
me: with kisses?
Lindsay: ... to death.
me: 😳
Presumably, one could be smothered to death with kisses.
@@BradyPostma depends if your dealing with the spooky
Anyone who likes Jande Austen and her contemporary women authors should check out the American novel "Kelroy", which was written in 1812 by Rebecca Rush. So much was packed into this short novel and the characters (especially Mrs. Hammond, the heroine's mother) won't be easy to forget. Someone should make a video on it.
well there's something to look into^^
uhm, isn't the first known novel (the tale of genji) by the japanese lady murasaki shikibu?
But Moll Flanders ends pretty happily, though? She gets transported to America for her crimes, but she ends up going with the guy she likes and she has an inheritance waiting for her in the colonies. That's pretty damn good given the circumstances.
Is Mme de Lafayette’s novel The Princess of Cleves considered amatory fiction?
I love this! I took a whole class on this in college, reading several pieces by the women mentioned here, but then kind of following the novel's progression into Richardson, finally ending with Frances Burney. On a somewhat related note, I got into a weird faze a year ago where I found and read a bunch of novels written by the best-selling lady authors of in the US during the 1800s and I think they're even more underappreciated. We even have a letter from Hawthorne to his publisher complaining about "scribbling women" eating up the entire publishing industry and making it hard for "real" writers like him to make waves, referring to those now-forgotten female writers!
Can anyone tell me what a Don Quiyote is?
Not to undermine the analysis overall and the contributions of women to lliterature, but I see no justification for the Anglocentrism at the beginning. By taking the merit of pioneering the modern novel from Miguel de Cervantes and giving it to these obscure English authors, you are elevating women's role, while simultaneously dismissing the importance of he who is by many considered the greatest writer in the Spanish-speaking world (Cervantes is to Spanish what Shakespeare is to English, after all). Only towards the end do you explicitly say that these women helped develop what is now known as the modern English novel. Why not specify from the start that you're gonna be talking about the English novel and not THE novel as if the whole genre's history revolved around Britain?
Thanks for making me think about this.
Antecedent!
8:11 - shade at best if anything.
Wait, so what about Ann Radcliffe?
She’s later but also WAY under appreciated!
Oh I LOVE Lindsay Ellis! Thanks for all your great stuff:)
This was after Cervantes, who died the same day as Shakespeare. Was it not until around 1700 that Don Quixote was published in it's entirety in English?
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Life is old there, older than the trees
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Country roads, take me home
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All my memories gather 'round her
Miner's lady, stranger to blue water
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Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye
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To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
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I hear her voice in the mornin' hour, she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
Drivin' down the road, I get a feelin'
That I should've been home yesterday, yesterday
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
Take me home, country roads
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
Take me home, country roads
Take me home, (down) country roads
Take me home, (down) country roads
You Say murder is worse but...
I study this for the first time last year in English literature. If you love reading and writing as well as English language (you'll be surprised with how interesting languages are) an English degree is the best option.
Lady Murasaki Shikibu in Japan wrote The Tale of Genji in the early 11th century so she beat like everyone to the literary punch.
An idea for a future video, inspired by the upcoming "Dune" movie, could be works that imagine humanity in the very, very distant future. Will we return to feudal societies or empirical hierarchies? Will we go the way of "All Tomorrows" and evolve into a collection of vastly different humanoid species? Will our encounters with alien life change everything about what we now consider human nature?
You're right. It's a missed opportunity that we don't call slash-fic Amateur Amatory.
"Prostitutes of the Pen" sounds badass