ABSTRACT
There are three main reasons why the gender of authors is a major concern in literary studies today:
because there is a considerable body of writing, much of it by women, which was 'silenced' or ignored in previous generations;
because looking at this body of literature challenges the canon not only by increasing the number of texts studied, but also by adding themes, images and ideas to a list of literary concerns; and
because there is still a freshness and mystery to approaching literary texts which we have not encountered before or which have not been widely studied.
