Literary canon, education and women’s writing

Abstract

The limited presence of women in the literary canon that is usually consulted derives from a variety of specifi c socio-historical conditions. The teaching and learning of The History of Literature does not only consist on the repetition and transmission of an inherited construction, but in adjusting a repertoire of authors that would contribute to awake in the students a curiosity for reading, and, at the same time, that would promote different versions of the world as well as of the human condition. The particular position of women writers in the past, and their peculiar ways of intervention, both into de social dialogue, and in the artistic sphere, have shaped all sort of creative experiences along History, and therefore, they must be revised and studied into the classroom. Only by these means we would obtain both a plural education, and, a fair vision of the literary facts. We need new pedagogic materials.