Varia

Agnes Repplier was nothing if not contrarian. In this 1897 collection of essays, she turns her sharp wit and formidable learning against the prevailing orthodoxies of her age - both the defenders of Victorian womanhood and the activists demanding something new. The result is a book that irritates everyone equally, which is probably why it still feels vital. The centerpiece, "The Eternal Feminine," takes aim at the "new woman" of the 1890s - that nervous fin-de-siècle creature supposedly remaking femininity for the modern age. Repplier, with devastating historical ammunition, points out that women have always been political, intellectual, and powerful; the "new" is merely the old dressed in different clothes. From biblical figures to queens, from Catherine the Great to Elizabeth I, she assembles an army of the dead to prove that the woman question has no answer because it has no problem. The remaining essays range across literature, society, and human behavior, each one marked by Repplier's distinctive blend of erudition and irony. This is not a polemic - it is something more dangerous: an intelligent woman thinking out loud about what it means to be female, without asking anyone's permission.