Memorializing motherhood: literary women and modernity.

and poised accomplishment. We tend to be less exacting, more democratic in our critical determinations about who or what is worthy of literary study. We pride ourselves that the women's literary tradition is hospitable to women struggling to express themselves despite limited education, limited means, and of course limited time apart from the domestic duties (drudgeries even!) customarily assigned them. Truth to life rather than literary power is our overriding criterion. Moers's enthusiasm for genius has not proved as irresistible as her more general reflections on "what it meant to be at once a woman and a writer."