Category talk:Women writers by historical period

2007 discussion

After some discussion on the main category talkpage, the following has been suggested:

• Women writers (ancient)[now exists]
• Women writers (early medieval period) [now exists]
• Women writers (10th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (11th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (12th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (13th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (14th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (15th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (16th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (17th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (18th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (19th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (20th century) [now exists]
• Women writers (21st century) [now exists]

— scribblingwoman 00:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

this doesn't seem like a very good idea. A century is not a "historical period" in any meaninful sense, and we don't even have "Category:Writers by historical period", of which this should obviously be a subset. While it is arguable to have a "woman writers" category (although combined categorization as "Women" and "Writers" would do just as well), we are looking at idiosyncratic fragmentation of a category without a masterplan. It would be important to look at the category organization related to the history of literature, but beginning at some random corner is the bottom-up approach that infallibly leads to unsatisfactory results. I would suggest a wider debate at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Literature first (sadly, there seems to be no project dedicated to the history of literature, which goes to explain present tattered categorization). dab (𒁳) 14:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

See a fuller discussion at Category talk:Women writers#Possible subcategories. — scribblingwoman 02:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Deciding where to put someone

I have been categorizing writers according to the publication dates of their works, when known, rather than their dates of birth and/or death. Also, I have been putting writers in two categories in cases where their initial publications clearly span two centuries. Writers with posthumous publications are something else: I would go by dates of writing, known or assumed, rather than dates of posthumous publication. This seems commonsense (?) but I thought I had better throw it out there. — scribblingwoman 02:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to avoid too many duplicate centuries, but there are some that are unavoidable. But I do try to focus on when they "flourished" rather than when they were born or died; someone born in 1190 would clearly belong to the 13th century in my mind. Where all there is is date of death and birth, I think death is usually a bit more relevant since the first dozen to dozen and a half years of life tend not to produce as much writing. A Musing 15:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Periodization

I see that Westernized periods have now been imposed on all the time periods. I'm not sure why, for exmaple, the "Renaissance" qualifies as a useful period outside of a rather small sliver of the world. I'd prefer to eliminate the Western infrastructure and return to straightforward time periods. A Musing 15:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I take it back - I see it's been done both ways. I'm going to add a cross-references, but that sounds fine. It may make sense to add to the "historical periods" some of the non-Western periodization schemes.A Musing 15:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)