literata

From Latin līterāta, litterāta.

literata (plural literatae)

1. female equivalent of literatus
   • 1875, “Literary Notices”, in The Primitive Methodist Magazine, , volume XIII (of the new series) / LVI (from the commencement), London: John Dickenson, , section “Only a Life; an Autobiographical Story. By Mary Baskin. ”:

     Miss Munro was a literata, and passed through the various struggles of authorship—from the cold ice-touch of the commercial publisher, who sees no beauty in any MS. unless it can be freely transmuted into gold, till she gained the summit of her literary ambition, when her power as a writer was felt, acknowledged, and rewarded, and she was eventually enabled to spend her days in comfort at Oldmaidenhood, somewhere down in Devonshire.

   • 1901, Virginia Tatnall Peacock, “Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill)”, in Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century, Philadelphia, Pa., London: J. B. Lippincott Company, page 250:

     About this time also she [Lady Randolph Churchill] made her first appearance as a literata in an article on the social life of Russia, based on the observations she had made while in St. Petersburg with her husband.

   • 1905, The School Journal, page 99, column 1:

     Even those who do not admire Miss Corelli as a literata will confess to possessing curiosity regarding her personality, and will eagerly welcome the book entitled Marie Corelli, the Writer and the Woman, by T. F. G. Coates, and R. S. Warren Bell.

   • 1944, George Jean Nathan, The Theatre Book of the Year 1944–1945: A Record and an Interpretation, Alfred A. Knopf, page 32:

     A literata who is fond of descriptions like “an arrogant, almost cruel mouth,” “the thick lips of Mr. Isaac Morris,” and “his six feet of well-proportioned body, his crisp hair, tanned face, and intensely blue eyes” is furthermore hardly likely to emerge suddenly as an expert hand at dramatic character delineation.

   • 1981 fall, Kathryn A. Tsai, “The Chinese Buddhist Monastic Order for Women: The First Two Centuries”, in Richard W. Guisso, Stanley Johannesen, editors, Women in China (Historical Reflections, volume 8, number 3, →ISSN), page 12:

     Confucian attitudes worked against a literary education for women, even though there were some famous literatae such as Pan Chao (d. 116) of the Latter Han (25-220).

   • 1999, Petra Schindler-Carter, Vintage Snapshots: The Fabrication of a Nation in the W.P.A. American Guide Series, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 189:

     […] one entitled “Cultural Landmarks” features homes of eminent literati and literatae (following ME 252).

   • 2000, Piera Carroli, “Alba de Céspedes Revisited”, in Carole C. Galluci, Ellen Nerenberg, editors, Writing Beyond Fascism: Cultural Resistance in the Life and Works of Alba de Céspedes, Madison, N.J., Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, →ISBN, page 51:

     For having anticipated what Carlo Bo (1963), at the conference “Female Emancipation in Italy,” held in Turin in 1961, would have defined as the task of “female” writing; for her intellectual and political contribution, for her interest in the sociohistorical reality of her time, as well as for her candid articulation of the problematic relationship of a literata in a male literary establishment—an establishment, in which she managed to affirm herself independently of literary trends and despite her initial anxiety—Alba de Céspedes occupies a place of fundamental importance in Italian culture.

   • 2008, “Marie Dauguet (1860–1942)”, in Norman R. Shapiro, editor, French Women Poets of Nine Centuries: The Distaff and the Pen, The Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, page 743:

     […] the reluctant celebrity would spend yearly “command performances” with the likes of the poets Henri de Régnier and Gabriele d’Annunzio, Rémy and Jean de Gourmont of the Mercure, the novelist Rachilde, and a distinguished coterie of literati (and literatae).

   • 2009, John Baldacchino, “Introduction. Indefinite Readings”, in Education Beyond Education: Self and the Imaginary in Maxine Greene’s Philosophy (Teaching Contemporary Scholars; volume 5; →ISSN), Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 5:

     Like Woolf, Greene learns with the literati. She is herself a literata.

   • 2012, Xiaorong Li, “The Green Window: The Boudoir in Poetic Convention”, in Women’s Poetry of Late Imperial China: Transforming the Inner Chambers, University of Washington Press, →ISBN, page 44:

     She also introduced other literati conventions into her depiction of boudoir life by infusing rich details such as drinking, admiring flowers, and spending moments of leisure and meditation in fashioning her own lifestyle as a literata.

   • 2015, Lynn T. White III, “Marcos, failed centralization, and land from the tiller”, in Philippine Politics: Possibilities and Problems in a Localist Democracy (Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 114:

     Ferdinand Marcos would hardly have qualified as a wu-type military hero, and Imelda was by no account a literata.

   • 2015, Laura Nenzi, “Circles and Circumstances”, in The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko: One Woman’s Transit from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan, Honolulu, Haw.: University of Hawaiʻi Press, →ISBN, part I (Tokiko’s World), page 44:

     The title suggests an actual physical journey, but the reference to “the Way of Shikishima”—a metaphor for the training a poet must endure to reach the height of sophistication—and the deployment of elegant pillow-words (“sleeve” for Hitachi Province) indicate, allegorically, her [Kurosawa Tokiko’s] growth as a literata.

   • 2018, Carlo Pizzati, Mappillai: An Italian Son-in-Law in India, Simon & Schuster India, →ISBN:

     If you are a literatus or a literata, it was the year an Indian novelist, Aravind Adiga, won the Booker Prize for his debut novel The White Tiger.

   • 2019, Daphne P. Lei, Uncrossing the Borders: Performing Chinese in Gendered (Trans)Nationalism, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 136:

     Literary talent, one of Cai [Yan]’s recognizable characteristics, is harder to portray visually. But the illustration of The Daughter of Zhonglang in Newly Edited Zaju clearly shows Cai Yan both as a literata and as someone who holds an official position at court.

   • 2022, Matthew Mewhinney, Form and Feeling in Japanese Literati Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, pages 16–17 (Introduction § The Structure of the Present Book) and 96 (Sense and Sensibility in the Poetry of Ema Saikō § There is No Frigate Like a Book):

     Saikō created poems that represented her existential self by asserting her sense and sensibility as a literata writing through the very literary artifice that entrapped the representation of self in poetic convention. […] As a literata, Saikō had access to books from both the Chinese and Japanese traditions.

līterāta

1. inflection of līterātus:
   1. nominative/vocative feminine singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter plural

līterātā

1. ablative feminine singular of līterātus

• literata in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

• IPA^(key): /liteˈɾata/
• Rhymes: -ata
• Syllabification: li‧te‧ra‧ta

literata f (plural literatas)

1. female equivalent of literato