1. Feminine Writing in the Past and Present Days in Romania
Mihaela Dumitru Bacali
Doctoral School “Literary and Cultural Studies”
University of Bucharest, Romania
Doctoral School LLSH
University Stendhal Grenoble 3 France

2. Questions posed by the research
Which are the role and status of feminine writing? Does it truly exist, or is it rather an invention of the feminists, hiding a great amount of frustration? If it exists, is it inferior to that created by men, esthetically speaking? Is the alleged marginality of women’s literature a sociological problem or is it rather connected to the history of mentalities?

3. Stereotypes
“Feminine” literature is a sweetened, sentimental one, with a great amount of subjectivity, lyricism, emotion, while “masculine” literature is an objective one.
“Feminine” literature has always been placed under the sign of marginality, sometimes even under that of mediocrity.

4. General observations
We encounter a variety of perspectives on “feminine writing”. The standpoints expressed on different occasions are either of total acceptance, without limitations (most of them), of skepticism (fewer), or of total negation (the fewest).
The literary and cultural context of the apparition of the debates on this subject is Romania from the beginning of the 20th century, a moment characterized by the debut of feminine writings, which become a reality. The first “women writers” had made their presence known on the literary stage during the second half of the 19th century.

5. The first standpoints on this subject appear at the beginning of the 20th century, in Viața Românească magazine.
Viața Românească (first stage: , Iași)
“Of course a woman’s soul is different from that of a man, most of all with respect to her sensibility, the trait that works of art usually result from. So, thanks to women, the works of art are different from those of men.” (G. Ibrăileanu, “Arta și critica feminină”/“Feminine Art and Critique”, in Viața Românească, no.8, 1906, p )
“So, the measure by which one evaluates feminine works has, of course, a fault: an excessive sensibility that makes him always hesitate more or less, according to various side-influences, with no connection to the value itself of the work that must be analyzed.” (Izabela Sadoveanu, “Critica feminină”/“Feminine Critique”, in Viața Românească, no.7, 1906, p )

6. The Literary Circle “Sburătorul” (1919-1943) and Eugen Lovinescu
The Literary Circle “Sburătorul” activated between 1919 and 1943 and it focused on the emblematic personality of its mentor, Eugen Lovinescu. He was the one that brought together a group of women writers for who he provided the appropriate framework for their affirmation. Women’s empowerment had become a reality and the numerous women that took part in the meetings of the literary circle stand as a proof. It is here that the concept of “feminine writing” first takes shape and Lovinescu is the one that defines it, taking Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu’s first works as a starting point.

7. In Lovinescu’s opinion, the traits of feminine literature are:
The presence of feelings. “A woman lives in a world of feelings as in a world of her own. Her first function is to love. A lover and a mother – here are the two patterns of the eternal feminine essence.”
Sensuality. “Sensuality is a tone of a much more complicated feminine soul. (...) The feeling is pursued to its remotest ramifications. The heart is no longer the sacred cave of the Eleusinian mysteries in which the rites of love are codified.”
The feminine mystery. “Since a woman doesn’t talk, but whispers, doesn’t pronounce, but suggests herself, her literature becomes a true cryptography, a rumor of mysterious words, of half-covered sensations, of vague poetry, a literature with a key (…), a literature of shadows and whispers, of mystery and of cushioned alcove.”
The contradictory nature of a woman’s soul. “The female writer’s literature is a woman: she attracts, she promises a happiness that she never grants; she lifts obstacles that only few manage to overcome with the satisfaction of having surpassed a difficulty; she caresses by scratching and she leaves you with an obscure feeling of pleasure and discontent. So, the critic steps in, not without hesitation, in order to clarify things for himself and for others, trying to define the nature of the contradictory talent of the female writer.”

8. Foresight:
“We are heading for full feminism, so that our followers will live under the regime of total equality. We bow to the inevitable. But there are romantics who believe that only when women are given all rights will they realize what they have lost, as their greatest treasure was precisely the inequality and the lack of rights, and it was with the charm of their fragility that they conquered the world. They will obtain all rights, but they will lose the only weapon of their sex: the majesty of their weakness. The day all of us, with no exception, concentrate on the same piece of bread, splashed with our sweat, human kind will have lost something of the poetry of femininity, (…) the stripping of the mystery from femininity.”

9. Evoluția scrisului feminin (The Evolution of Feminine Writing), a work signed by Margareta Miller-Verghy and Ecaterina Săndulescu, in 1935, prefaced by Eugen Lovinescu, is an anthology of feminine literature, unique in the landscape of Romanian literature, which contains biographical and critical notes for every female writer and one or more excerpts from their literary works. What amazes us is the multitude of female writers included in the anthology: 34 in this volume and 38 more in the second volume that never appeared. Some of them remained in the literary history, especially the ones that wrote in foreign languages, while others are entirely unknown. The selection criteria have been violated at times, but the work is still one of reference and, as far as we known, it is the only one of this kind in the history of Romanian literature. In the “Preface”, Eugen Lovinescu revaluates his position from “Art knows no gender, age, region or, in the end, even nationality; it is gratified through its substance and it organizes itself into groups and establishes hierarchies only according to aesthetic criteria. The principle suffers no discussion and it remains absolute. (…) And still, although there is no question to grade the works of art according to gender in order to make their understanding easier, there are secondary criteria that make possible the existence of a literature grouped by region, gender, age.” (Eugen Lovinescu, “Preface”, p.?)

10. Another position expressed in the same period is that of Camil Petrescu, in the article “Notă despre romanul feminin” (“Note on the feminine novel”). He is a partisan of feminine literature too. Besides, at that time women writers had already become an undeniable reality (Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, Princess Bibescu, Lucia Demetrius, Anișoara Odeanu). For Camil Petrescu, the traits of feminine writing are: “feminine sensibility”, fragmentation, the art of details; the narrative “becomes a fabric of moods, endlessly nuanced, as an embroidery, one might say it is a sort of intuitive poantilism”, the simplicity and veracity: “everything has such a simplicity and such a veracity that is similar to the beginning of things.”
He considers the sickly state as typical for a woman and therefore present in feminine literature too.
“Women – these ever ailing creatures”. Proust (who had a truly feminine sensibility) once showed the deep truth that the sickly condition often develops the intelligence in all its virtuality”. (“Notă despre romanul feminin”/“Note on the feminine novel”, Revista Fundațiilor Regale, year IV, no. 2, 1937, p ).

11. We find a skeptical stand in Tudor Vianu, in the article “Feminismul și lupta sexelor” (“Feminism and the fight of the genders”, in Sburătorul, year I, no.10, 1919, p ).
“The feminist victory is on its way. Part of the civil rights were granted to women… A large and boundless revolution. Soon the face of the world will change, history will strengthen the complexity of its relations with one coefficient more. The old conflict between genders will move forward from the biological realm to the social one. Rivalry will be added to love… And as the old battle remains the same as always, the means will change, the interests will be transformed.”

12. However, Eugen Ionescu expresses a completely negative point of view.
He laments over “the ages”, the politicized contemporary society in which writers can no longer find a place of their own: “Being a writer and a contemplative person is nowadays a strange, out of place, ridiculous thing. In other words, everyone knows that only the accent is placed on politics, on the physical facts.” Writers have become spiritually “weakened” and they ended up dealing with politics too, or, in the best case scenario, they are drawn towards “ethical concerns”. He notices “a cultural fatigue”. “Our weak culture cannot withstand the political present.” A symptom of the literary life is that young writers have given their place to girls.
“From now on, literature and culture will be women’s concern or the pursuit of impotent and effeminate men. Besides, can’t you see that the literature of the youngest (of men) is sad, pessimistic and too disgraceful to be called literature? Instead, girls’ literature takes charge with optimism, love, morality, cheerfulness and, naturally, mediocrity.
So we no longer have young writers, but girls, only girls, hostels for girls, schools for girls, girls’ interiority, loving girls, girl students. On, girls! Take care of culture and of your kitchens! And there you have it – the kitchen becomes a cultural hall: Erastia Peretz, Anișoara Odeanu, Lucia Demetrius, Yvonne Rossignon, Sidonia Drăgușanu, Maria Rădulescu, Coca Farago, Elena Eftimiu, etc., etc.
Soon they will take their turn to become politicians. And literature and culture will come to be exactly like infants.”
(Eugen Ionescu, “Generația fetelor”/“The Girls’ Generation”, in Viața Literară, Revistă de informație critică, literară și artistică, year X, no.10, June 1935, p. 1)

13. If during the interwar period the comments on feminine writing or literature were few and placed at a greater distance in time from each other and in the communist era they were completely gone, after 1989 they became rather frequent. We notice nowadays the more obvious tendency to conceptualize and also the firmly stated desire to recover a literature that most of the times has been ignored by criticism, as well as by the great public. This time, women-critics themselves are the ones that fight, through their works, to impose this concept, by bringing to the public or literary attention the images of forgotten women writers.

14. The first serious work dedicated to feminine writing, a true kaleidoscope of modern feminine prose, is Prozatoare ale literaturii române moderne (Female Prose Writers of Modern Romanian Literature, Biblioteca Revistei Familia, 1994), by Liana Cozea.
We have “a tradition of feminine writing, a feminine literature, as a distinct literary space, somewhat similar to English literature – feminine prose or women’s writing” (the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf).
“We believe that the acceptance with serenity and in full awareness of the existence de facto of the ‘feminine’ group in Romanian literature must not be interpreted as a discrimination with pejorative-isolating tendencies and that it doesn’t presuppose a disqualification of value. The vehement and obstinate denial of the feminine essence of such a prose deprives it, undeservedly, of its intrinsic qualities.” However, the use of aesthetic criteria doesn’t rule out noticing a unique and inimitable “voice” that the fictional or essayistic prose of female writers illustrates.

15. Elena Zaharia-Filipaș, Studii de literatură feminină (Studies on feminine literature), Paideea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004
Another “voice” that belongs to a literary critic which pleads for “the feminine writing” is that of Elena Zaharia-Filipaş, university professor, author of the book Studii de literatură feminină (Studies on feminine literature), published in The study brings together critical essays about Romanian female writers, preceded by a comment on Eugen Lovinescu’s statements on feminine literature. Starting from Lovinescu’s statements, Elena Zaharia-Filipaş comes up with a definition of the concept “feminine literature”, a definition completed by a picture that includes some portraits of women writers.
A pertinent remark is that many of our women writers are born under the care of a masculine figure: either a husband or a father. Such is the case of Hermiona Asachi, Iulia Haşdeu, Adela Xenopol, Sofia Nădejde, Veronica Micle, Matilda Cugler-Poni, Maria Mavrodin, etc.
Another remark, just as interesting as the previous one, is that “women writers” are most of the times educated at a magazine, they are trained according to its ideas and they take advantage of it in order to succeed on the literary stage. As an example, the author gives us the following names: Matilda Cugler-Poni, who is cultivated at Convorbiri literare magazine; Sofia Nădejde, whose name is connected to Contemporanul; Constanţa Hodoş and Maria Cunţan, who collaborate at Semănătorul, which proves that, despite the independence that women shout for so decidedly, most of the times they need a support/a masculine helping hand in order to succeed in the literary world.

16. The last attempt to define feminine literature belongs to Bianca Burța-Cernat, in her book Fotografie de grup cu scriitoare uitate (Group Photography with Forgotten Women Writers), Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2010 – a radiography of the interwar feminine prose. She restates the idea according to which interwar feminine prose is marked by fragmentation.
“In the short prose, the interwar women seem to like the narrative miniature best, the quasi-photographic snapshot. In their novels they rarely choose a solid-realistic architectural construction, preferring (also because of a structural deficiency, I might add) the mosaic construction specific for the assemblage of testimonies or documents of the soul constituted in ‘life files’; the novel (genuinely) built according to the diarist notes type or the one using the journalistic, memoirist or epistolary insertion trick in a narrative that has two or more ‘voices’ is a formula that the interwar female prose writers frequently resort to.” (p. 31)
Bianca Burța-Cernat talks about the idea of “a feminization of literature in modernity”, citing Julia Kristeva, who develops this thesis in La Revolution du language poetique (The Revolution of Poetic Language). “The feminization of literature in modernity is directly linked to the fact that the masculine creator now discovers within him a weak, vulnerable, passive-contemplative feminine identity. This discovery can be caused – and in this regard we have notorious examples – by facing the limits of the illness, which gives us a ‘feminine’ literature of the ‘interior’, of isolation, of intimacy, a ‘compensation’ literature in which the phantasmal experience replaces the epic itself. The ‘sick’ literary authors are par excellence feminine/feminized constructs. (...) Camil Petrescu suggests a subtle convergence of femininity and sickness and also of femininity with a certain spirit of modernity (and of modern literature).” (p. 35)

17. If in the interwar period we can talk about “a feminization of literature”, on the contrary, in the modern era we notice a “masculinization” of the feminine prose. The women writers come closer and closer to territories that not long ago were considered mostly “masculine”; for example, the pure epic, the objective prose. In postmodernist contemporaneity, by means of gender studies comes up the idea that the feminine is rather a social convention, that a person becomes a woman not just as a result of the native sex, but also as a result of a series of predetermined images and representations. The idea of complementarity of the genders, that of abandoning the male-female dichotomy and, more recently, that of lack of differentiation, also manifested in literature, become a symptom of modernity. The so-called “feminine” traits (subjectivity, sensoriality, introspection, lyricism) may be observed at a male writer too, just like some traits considered to be masculine (objectivity, sensibility, the analytical, the epic) may become attributes specific for some female-writers. How can one reconcile the woman’s old dream of equality and the full affirmation of femininity with her desire to remain a “distinct” being, on all levels of existence, therefore including writing? Confronted with the perspective of an absolute equality, as well as with the hope of still remaining a woman, “the female writer”, who nowadays has become a constant presence on the literary stage, is forced to face the challenges of the modern world.