Creation and (Re)birth of the Female Subject

European Women Writers of Modernism

Abstract

This article presents three modern female writers who (re-)create forms of self-awareness and identity in their literary texts. Sibilla Aleramo, Colette, and Mela Hartwig share the experience of patriarchal hegemony, the lack of a female writing tradition and an avant-gardist search for new identity constructions. All three became successful writers, but only for a short time before they went to exile, were silenced or marginalized. Their approaches include a plurality of voices that range from the re-enactment of the past—through mythologies, childhood, foundation narratives or matrilinear genealogies—to decompositions or destructive fantasies. As contemporaries from different European countries together they paved the way for experimental approaches to the (re-)creation of female writing in the early twentieth century. However, their understanding of the female role also undermines the traditional binarism inducing new forms of expression. By comparing their literature this article highlights their decisive roles in the articulation of subjectivity and suggests to reintegrate their work into the literary canon of European modernism.