Reliving Woman’s History through New Eyes: A Study of Women’s Electronic Literature and the Shifting Women’s Faces in Historical Fiction

Abstract

Literature has spilled over from the pages of printed books to electronic media now. One holds a thousand books in the palm of his/her hands at will, and also there is a surge of writers writing online fiction. "Chick-lit" or woman's literature being one of the most popular genres, a considerable fraction of this umbrella genre overlaps with the category of historical fiction (or historical romance). It is with this genre that my paper shall critically engage with. One finds interesting outcomes when, living in, what debatably is, a post-feminist age and experiencing the womanist lifestyle on a daily basis, the online authors of today look back at the feminist movements from their modern perspectives. Can their heroines be the same as those in the time of the Bronte sisters or Austen? Of course not. The perspectives have greatly changed through the various movements affecting literature and society in the meantime. This paper shall aim to trace the effects of the changing face of feminism in the representation of women in the book lover's social media sites. To that purpose, the paper shall take into study some of the most popular authors of historical romance like Robert Thier, appearing on the hot lists of applications like Wattpad and Radish Fiction.