Social Perspectives on 19th Century Women’s Progress
Social Perspectives on 19th Century Women’s Progress

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the diversification and conflicts in women’s roles as part of the slow but steady process of emancipation—the move away from the Victorian cult of domesticity to a new awareness of the opportunities offered to women by the rapid pace of the country’s modernization and economic growth. At the literary level, the study aims to connect the representations of women’s roles with the idiosyncrasies of the transition from romanticism to realism generated by the endurance of the tradition of romance and the persistence of the deeply rooted cult of domesticity. It also aims to draw attention to the impact of women’s presence on the literary scene, and to the emergence of women’s literary tradition in works by Romanian women writers like Matilda Cugler-Poni, Bucura Dumbravă, Eugenia Ianculescu-de Reuss, Constanţa Marino-Moscu, Sofia Nădejde, Smaranda Gheorghiu, Adela Xenopol. Although marginalized or totally ignored by the classical literary canon, late 19th century Romanian women writers marked a major development in the literary scene by “entering professional authorship in ever-increasing numbers” and forging a new, female tradition.

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