Feminist Revision and the Bible The Unwritten Volume

What happens when women writers re-imagine culture? How do feminists need that ur-text of patriarchy, the Bible? Unwritten volume: Re-thinking teh Bible attempts to re-think certain customary assumptions about feminism and about the Bible, in the light of poetic "readings" of biblical texts by 19th and 20th century women writers. The author proposes that women writers relate to the Bible in complex ways, which both critique biblical misogyny and stem directly from elements of transgressive writing within scripture iteself. Ultimately Ostriker suggests that feminist reinterpretations of scripture are the inevitable consequence of spiritual values which ask us to turn from institutions to the meaning of the original revelation.

Alicia Ostriker is the author of seven volumes of poetry, as well as Vision and Verse in William Blake and an annotated edition of Blake's Complete Poems. Her work as a feminist critic includes Writing like a Woman and the widely influential and controversial Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America.