Germaine Greer

Standard Name: Greer, Germaine
Birth Name: Germaine Greer
Pseudonym: Germaine
Pseudonym: Dr G.
Pseudonym: Earth Rose
Pseudonym: Rose Blight
GG , scholar and media person, was one of the early and most important voices in the explosion of feminist theory and action in the 1970s. She also worked in journalism and published a satirical gardening column. She has written academic literary history, and monographs of social analysis on a number of burning topics: population control, the status of women, international relations between rich and poor countries, and environmental damage and conservation. GG has founded and run a journal devoted to the study of women's writing. Her editorial production includes a ground-breaking anthology of seventeenth-century women's poetry, as well as collected works by individual early female poets, and broader poetry selections. Her book about discovering her father's mysterious past combines biography with autobiography.
Black-and-white photo of Germaine Greer, looking at the camera and holding a tall bunch of sticks as she stretches one leg over a fence, March 1971.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Damaris Masham
DM left in manuscript a poem which has been entitled from its opening words, When Deaths Cold Hand, written in 1682, now among Locke's papers in the Bodleian Library as Locke MS c. 32...
Anthologization Alice Sutcliffe
Only a handful of copies of this survive (four were known in 1996).
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Cullen, Patrick, and Alice Sutcliffe. “Introductory Note”. Alice Sutcliffe, Scolar Press, 1996, p. ix - xiii.
xii
It was included by Germaine Greer , Jeslyn Medoff , and others in Kissing the Rod, 1988, and selected by...
Anthologization Jo Shapcott
Germaine Greer 's Poems for Gardeners, 2003, includes several of the sensuous little 2-stanza poems that are Shapcott's version of Rainer Maria Rilke 's Les Roses, and printed in her Tender Taxes...
Cultural formation William Shakespeare
Scholarly debate continues to rage on the question of whether WS subscribed to the Church of England or whether he adhered to the minority and persecuted Old Religion of Catholicism . Supporters of the Catholic...
Family and Intimate relationships Maya Angelou
MA made her second marriage, to Australian journalist and house-builder Paul du Feu , in the same year in which he was divorced from Germaine Greer and published a memoir entitled Let's Hear It for...
Family and Intimate relationships William Shakespeare
Her name was given wrongly in the licence, which has given rise to various lines of speculation; however, there seems no good reason to doubt that Shakespeare intended from this date to marry the woman...
Intertextuality and Influence Monica Furlong
She begins arrestingly: We live in a period in which it is not possible to talk meaningfully about God.
Furlong, Monica. The End of Our Exploring. Hodder and Stoughton, 1973.
13
She then posits an absolute human need for meaning and for myth (the core...
Literary responses Ruth Pitter
Germaine Greer , anthologizing this poem, notes that it would be merely conventional, just the usual moralisation of the gardening process, but for the specificity which makes it read like instructions to students of horticulture.
Greer, Germaine, editor. Poems for Gardeners. Virago, 2003.
230
Literary responses Anna Wickham
AW has had a recent detractor in Germaine Greer , who claims that the perceived political importance of what she was doing greatly distorted contemporary assessment of her achievement.
Greer, Germaine. Slip-Shod Sibyls. Penguin, 1996.
415
Greer disparages her poetry as...
Literary responses Jan Morris
Germaine Greer wrote a review for the Evening Standard which opens politely: You cannot help liking Jan Morris and she poses her Conundrum in great style. Greer uses the feminine pronoun but asserts that Morris...
Literary responses Emmeline Pankhurst
Germaine Greer has observed that the fact of Emily Davison 's death after running in front of the king's horse in the Derbyremains unspoken in Pankhurst's speech, which hardly makes sense without it.
Greer, Germaine, and Emmeline Pankhurst. “Foreword”. Freedom or death, Guardian News and Media, 2007.
6
Literary responses Christabel Pankhurst
Nearly twenty years later Sylvia Pankhurst accused this book of sensationalism and of preaching the sex war deprecated and denied by the older Suffragists.
qtd. in
Purvis, June, and Maureen Wright. “Writing Suffragette History: the contending autobiographical narratives of the Pankhursts”. Women’s History Review, Vol.
14
, No. 3/4, pp. 405-33.
419
In the later twentieth century it was dismissed by a...
Literary responses Anne Stevenson
Germaine Greer praises her in Slip-Shod Sibyls for expressing consciousness of herself as a woman poet rather than the woman poet, for looking forward to the forging of a new language in which women would...
Literary responses Lucy Hutchinson
Since her tally of works in print began to climb steeply in the 1990s, anthologists Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson have called LHone of the most important poets, man or woman, of the mid-century...
Literary responses Elizabeth Jennings
She held bursaries or grants from the Arts Council (after the initial one for her first book) in 1965, 1968, and 1972.
“Lauinger Library: Special Collections Division”. Georgetown University Library.
Some critics disparage EJ 's work along lines effectively summarized by Robert Crawford

Timeline

1677: Mary Beale had a good year as a practising...

Building item

1677

Mary Beale had a good year as a practising painter, with 83 commissions and an earned income of £429. She had set up a studio in Pall Mall in 1670.
Thorpe, Vanessa. “Artist in residence?”. Guardian Weekly, 6 July 2007, p. 30.
30
Makin, Bathsua et al. Educating English Daughters. Editors Teague, Frances et al., Iter Academic Press; Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2016.
110-11

1970: Three touchstones of US feminist theory were...

Writing climate item

1970

Three touchstones of US feminist theory were published: Shulamith Firestone 's The Dialectic of Sex and Robin Morgan 's anthology Sisterhood is Powerful, as well as Kate Millett 's Sexual Politics.
Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. Dial, 1999.
152

30 April 1971: A Public Debate on Women's Liberation was...

Building item

30 April 1971

A Public Debate on Women's Liberation was held at the Town Hall, New York, between Norman Mailer on one hand, and on the other Jacqueline Ceballos , Germaine Greer , Jill Johnston , and Diana Trilling .
Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew. Richard Cohen Books, 1999.
182-9, 278-9

3-16 December 1971: Pakistan and India fought a war over the...

National or international item

3-16 December 1971

Pakistan and India fought a war over the secession of the former East Pakistan, which claimed independent nation status as Bangladesh.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
432
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
264
Holmes, Stephen. “Looking away”. London Review of Books, 14 Nov. 2002, pp. 3-8.
7
Greer, Germaine. The Madwoman’s Underclothes. Picador, 1987.
108-10

: The US Democratic Convention, held this year...

National or international item

Autumn 1972

The US Democratic Convention, held this year in Miami, saw the first action by the newly formed National Women's Political Caucus .
Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew. Richard Cohen Books, 1999.
201-2

By 26 October 1972: Helen Gardner edited The New Oxford Book...

Writing climate item

By 26 October 1972

Helen Gardner edited The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950, designed to update and replace Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 's Oxford Book of English Verse, 1900.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(26 October 1972): 11

28 January 1973: William Hamilton's Private Member's Bill...

Building item

28 January 1973

William Hamilton 's Private Member's Bill to outlaw sex discrimination by employers failed to pass the House of Commons : Ronald Bell single-handedly delayed voting until the teabreak intervened.
Greer, Germaine. The Madwoman’s Underclothes. Picador, 1987.
169-71

1974: The United Nations International Conference...

National or international item

1974

The United Nations International Conference on Population and Development met in Bucharest, Romania, to mark World Population Year.
Asbell, Bernard. The Pill: A Biography of the Drug that Changed the World. Random House, 1995.
326
Ledbetter, Rosanna. A History of the Malthusian League: 1877-1927. Ohio State University Press, 1976.
4
Pfeffer, Naomi. The Stork and the Syringe: A Political History of Reproductive Medicine. Polity Press, 1993.
27
Greer, Germaine. The Madwoman’s Underclothes. Picador, 1987.
192

1975: This year was designated International Women's...

National or international item

1975

This year was designated International Women's Year, though the intiative of Helvi Sipila of the United Nations .
Ross, Elizabeth Arledge, and Miriam L. Bearse. A Chronology of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Britain. Editors Boyle, Karen E. and The Oral History Project Advisory Group, The Feminist Archive, 1996, http://Bodleian.
22
Greer, Germaine. The Madwoman’s Underclothes. Picador, 1987.
195-7

By Autumn 1975: Carmen Callil's new Virago Press issued its...

Women writers item

By Autumn 1975

Carmen Callil 's new Virago Press issued its first title, Mary Chamberlain 's Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village, an indictment of rural poverty as it bears on women.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(25 September 1975): 13

January 1996: Novelist Kate Mosse and a committee of literary...

Women writers item

January 1996

Novelist Kate Mosse and a committee of literary professionals established the Orange Prize for Fiction (later the Baileys Prize, now the Women's Proze for Fiction), a literary prize to be solely awarded to and judged...

2 June 2003: British Asian writer Monica Ali published...

Women writers item

2 June 2003

British Asian writer Monica Ali published her first novel, Brick Lane, to resounding success.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.
Mullan, John. “Public faces and inner spaces”. The Guardian, 12 June 2004, p. Review 32.
Review 32
Smith, David, correspondent. “’It’s your shout, then we can start discussing V S Naipaul’”. The Observer, 15 Aug. 2004, p. 7.
7
O’Neill, Sean. “Asian leaders warn of violence against Brick Lane film”. Times, 22 July 2006, p. 28.
28
Lewis, Paul. “’You sanctimonious philistine’—Rushdie v Greer, the sequel”. The Guardian, 29 July 2006, p. 11.
11
Walter, Natasha. “The book burners do not speak for all of Brick Lane”. The Guardian, 1 Aug. 2006, p. 29.
29

16 June 2011: Caitlin Moran, a British journalist and broadcaster...

Women writers item

16 June 2011

Caitlin Moran , a British journalist and broadcaster born in 1975, published How To Be a Woman, a kind of hilarious, moralised, feminist memoir or self-help book.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.

Texts

Greer, Germaine. “’Backward springs’: The Self-Invention of Martha Moulsworth”. "The Muses Females Are": Martha Moulsworth and Other Women Writers of the English Renaissance, edited by Robert C. Evans and Anne C. Little, Locust Hill, 1995, pp. 3-8.
Greer, Germaine, editor. 101 Poems by 101 Women. Faber and Faber, 2001.
Greer, Germaine. “A biodegradable art. Changing fashions in anthologies of women’s poetry”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4813, pp. 7-8.
Philips, Katherine. Collected Works. Editors Thomas, Patrick et al., Stump Cross Books, 1993, 3 vols.
Greer, Germaine. Daddy, We Hardly Knew You. Hamish Hamilton, 1989.
Greer, Germaine. Daddy, We Hardly Knew You. Penguin, 1990.
Greer, Germaine. “Doomed to Sincerity”. London Review of Books, pp. 9-11.
Greer, Germaine. “Editorial Conundra in the Texts of Katherine Philips”. Editing Women, edited by Ann M. Hutchison, University of Toronto Press, 1998, pp. 79-100.
Greer, Germaine. “Fellini wanted to cast me in Casanova. We ended up in bed together”. The Guardian, p. G2 22.
Greer, Germaine, and Emmeline Pankhurst. “Foreword”. Freedom or death, Guardian News and Media, 2007.
Pankhurst, Emmeline, and Germaine Greer. Freedom or death. Guardian News and Media, 2007.
Greer, Germaine. “Grandmother’s footsteps”. The Guardian, pp. Review 2 - 4.
Greer, Germaine. “Horror like Thunder”. London Review of Books, pp. 22-4.
Wharton, Anne. “Introduction”. The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton, edited by Germaine Greer and Selina Hastings, Stump Cross Books, 1997, pp. 1-124.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda, Volume III: The Translations, edited by Germaine Greer and R. Little, Stump Cross Books, 1993, p. ix - xxi.
Greer, Germaine et al., editors. Kissing the Rod. Virago, 1988.
Greer, Germaine. On Rape. Melbourne University Publishing, 2018.
Greer, Germaine, editor. Poems for Gardeners. Virago, 2003.
Greer, Germaine. Sex and Destiny. Harper and Row, 1984.
Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare’s Wife. Bloomsbury, 2007.
Greer, Germaine. Slip-Shod Sibyls. Viking, 1995.
Greer, Germaine. Slip-Shod Sibyls. Penguin, 1996.
Greer, Germaine. The Boy. Thames and Hudson, 2003.
Greer, Germaine. The Change. Hamish Hamilton, 1991.
Greer, Germaine. The Change. Penguin, 1992.