Have They not Followed the Example of Our Women? Wardah al-Yāziǧī on Women Poets, Nation-building and Exemplarity

The cultural Renaissance of the Nahḍah in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave rise to new issues and trends. Egyptian and Syrian Lebanese women intellectuals claimed more space in the public arena, while supporting the nationalist movements on the rise in their countries. The reflection on women’s role in a modern country was central, leading to an investigation into who could be the most suitable models, in an often lively tension betweenEastern heritage and assumed Western modernity. Within this debate, one of the more structured positions was held by the Lebanese poet and intellectual Wardah al-Yāziǧī (1838-1924) in her essay al-Mar’ah al-šarqiyyah (1906). This paper seeks to explore the intersections of the issues of women’s advancement and nationalism in al-Yāziǧī’s vision, with commentated excerpts from her al-Mar’ah al-šarqiyyah. The author’s reflections are set within a broader theoretical framework which encompasses the rediscovery of the genealogy of both famous and often little-known Arab women poets, and the author’s reflection on autochthonous models. In doing so, literature, women’s issues and nationalism interrelate through the unifying instrument of a pedagogical perspective.