Een hoofdstuk apart. 'Vrouwenromans' in de literaire kritiek 1898-1930

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Summary
A chapter in its own right
The reception of women's novels in literary criticism 1900-1930

Around 1900 women made a massive breakthrough in Dutch literature. A rough estimate shows that the Netherlands counted over a hundred female novelists in the first three decades of this century, or, in the words of the critic Anthonie Donker, ‘a hundred ladies crocheting their novels with a knitting needle’. Of these one hundred female writers only a few have obtained a modest place in the history of literature: Augusta de Wit, Margo Scharten-Antink, Nine van der Schaaf, Ina Boudier-Bakker, Top Naeff, Annie Salomons and Carry van Bruggen. These were the best-known and most popular ones even in their own days. In general, novels by female writers were not thought much of by literary critics, but were much read and appreciated by the public.

The female writers who made their début after 1900 did not present themselves as a group. They did not publish manifestos, found a journal, or unite around an existing journal. They did not engage in literary polemics, nor did they rebel against literary predecessors. In no way did they appear to pursue a common literary goal. Except for Carry van Bruggen, they concerned themselves even independently remarkably little with reflection on their authorship, or literature in general. Whenever they occasionally made statements about such topics, they emphasized their individual position; individual in relation to each other and regarding literary tradition. Consequently, they did not cause people to think of them as a group, movement or generation. But still they have gone down as a group; this image was established by others. From the outset critics and literary historians have treated the female writers as a collective, a separate category, a ‘phenomenon’. In literary surveys female writers were placed in separate chapters. Separate studies and articles were devoted to female authors. Novels by female authors were collectively discussed in reviews, and were systematically compared to one another only. The novels were provided

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with group-labels such as ‘women's novels’ and ‘ladies' novels’. Critics considered the female writers to be a group, and their novels to be a genre.

The remarkable discrepancy between the individualistic behaviour of the female writers and the collective approach by the critics forms the reason for this study, in which the critics' motives are investigated. Two related questions are of central importance to this investigation: why did critics regard novels by female authors as a phenomenon in its own right, and what kind of phenomenon was it to their eyes? Our research therefore does not focus on the novels, but on the literary criticism concerned. The novels do come into the discussion, but they play only a minor role.

The structure of this book is based on the possible explanations for the collective approach that critics chose as regard women's novels. Literary, social and ideological explanations are scrutinized one by one.

In chapter i the field of investigation is explored while an expositon is given of the problems to be tackled. This chapter also contains a section on the place of women's novels in the value-hierarchy of literary criticism. In the course of the book the reader may get the impression that literary criticism paid a lot of attention to women's literature. This impression will be put into perspective at once: from the beginning leading critics paid little attention to women's literature, although novels by female writers were quite numerous. The critics considered these novels to be of limited importance to literature.

In literary criticism women's novels were ranked as inferior continuations of the naturalism which had been made popular by the Movement of the Eighties. For this reason, chapter ii is devoted to the views of critics on the realism after the Eighties. A distinction is made between the critics before 1918, who made their own contribution to realistic prose, and the critics after 1918, who manifested themselves as a rejuvenating force by fiercely resisting realism.

Chapter iii is about the question as to whether it is possible to define women's novels as a literary genre on the basis of literary criticism. Critics saw many similarities between novels by women. Following these critics all women's novels would thus belong col-

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lectively to realistic prose. Younger critics and subsequent literary historians went as far as to identify women's novels with realism after the Eighties, which in their opinion was a kind of obsolete prose. They saw a weakened, diluted and moderate naturalism or realism as well as epigonism as specific characteristics of women's novels. For that reason, to distinguish women's novels as a genre is to pronounce a negative value-judgement: many of the younger critics put all women's novels in the same box on the basis of the literary drawbacks attached to them.

According to the critics the contents of the novels show a high degree of similarity too. Critics accused female authors of constantly writing about the same subjects: women's lives, family ups and downs, love and marriage. The scope of those novels was summarized as ‘the Dutch domestic interior’, a denigrating term indicating that the subject matter is banal, limited, unimportant and trite.

Even so, not all women's novels fit into this profile. And on the other hand male authors too wrote about the Dutch interior. Therefore, the conclusion of this chapter is that women's novels were not distinguished as a pure literary genre. Other factors come into play as well.

In chapter iv it is investigated to what extent those other factors are of a social nature. Critics showed an inclination to treat women's novels as a social phenomenon rather than a literary aesthetic one. They saw a connection between the growing number of female authors and social developments such as the feminist movement. They related the subject matter of women's novels to questions which were raised by the feminist movement. Moreover critics regarded the market as exercising a special influence on women's novels; they pointed to the wide circulation of the novels, to the specific (female) readership for which the novels were intended, and to the success they had with their readers. Critics reproached female writers for a commercial attitude, for playing to the gallery and, consequently, for a lack of genuine artistic zeal. These characteristics also apply to the objections to the prose by women. According to many critics women's novels which aimed for a large readership were balancing on the dividing line between literature and light fiction. Many of the younger critics felt that the novels had already crossed that line.

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A paragraph of this chapter is devoted to the remarkable notion of ‘ladies' novel’. This notion came to play a growing part in literary discussions about the prose by women in the period between 1900 and 1930. This notion eventually sealed the fate of women's prose, especially through the agency of Ter Braak en Du Perron. By 1930 all novels by women had been subsumed under ‘ladies' novel’ and were banned from official literature. The notion of ‘ladies' novel’ played a crucial role in this process of exclusion. An analysis of this curious notion shows that it has many explicit and implicit connotations which are all at right angles to the prevailing literary views and demands.

Chapter v, the longest chapter, is about the ideological stratum in the norms which critics used as regards women's novels. At the turn of the century ‘woman’ and ‘the feminine’ were much-discussed subjects. Under the influence of psychology, which was just then coming into its own, there was a growing tendency to define ‘woman’ in psychological terms. Similar developments may be detected in other fields; a series of studies on women's psychology came out, for instance. Four of these studies are dealt with in a separate paragraph. In this chapter it is argued that the climate of thought at the turn of the century was pervaded by an ideology supported by science which consisted of psychological ideas and definitions of femininity. Literary criticism reproduced this ideology and connected it with literary views and norms. The result was a system of norms especially applicable to women. The function of this ideology in literary criticism will be analysed, using the studies on women's psychology as focal points.

The conclusion of the final chapter is that the literary criticism of this period was characterized by a double normative system or a double critical standard of morality. There was a specific normative pattern for women's novels, which was composed of literary, social and ideological elements. The latter is fundamental and forms the basis for distinguishing a separate genre of ‘women's novels’. The implications of double standards on the parts of critics for the work of female writers is discussed in more detail and is illustrated on the basis of the reception of Carry van Bruggen's Eva.

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In the two final paragraphs a few remarks are made about current issues in the feminist study of literature. First, the debate about female writers and the literary canon is dealt with. A contribution to this debate is made from the results of research into the reception of women's novels. The investigation has revealed hidden mechanisms in the process of establishing a literary canon. These mechanisms are specific and detrimental to female authors, and receive little attention from present-day literary theorists. Next, a critical appraisal is made of concepts which have become current again, such as a female culture, female literature vs. male literature, a female voice in literature and female vs. male reading. Finally, the above is placed in the perspective of the ‘equality-difference’ debate, which is as old as feminism itself.

vertaling: Manon Ketz