Censorship—the Knot that Binds Intimacy and Women’s Writing

Abstract

The connection between the private—often considered as the realm of the intimate—and women’s writing has long preoccupied feminist criticism. Recent feminist criticism has revealed the social impact of the connection between intimacy and women’s writing. This also raises the question of how women have negotiated these nuances and positions. Were there any strategies, any coping mechanisms with regard to employing intimacy in their writing? In this review article, we provide a brief overview of how censorship, gender and intimacy have been intertwined throughout history. Building on Sue Curry Jansen’s view which regards censorship as “the knot that binds knowledge and power” we further claim that we could regard censorship as the knot that binds intimacy and women’s writing. We also corroborate our assertions with examples from prominent studies focusing mainly on Western European literatures and add further examples of encounters with various forms of censorship, as experienced by Zofka Kveder, a writer who actively participated in Slovenian, German, Czech, and Croatian literary systems.