The ground for the "Why so few?" question has been comprehensively covered
by Messrs. Schwartz and Todd, but I tend to agree with Mr Todd that
somehow the arguments fail to hit the spot.

In particular, I found Steve's suggestion that literature is somehow a
technically less demanding discipline than music caused me at least one
raised eyebrow.  In what important sense can this possibly be true?

It may indeed be cheaper to tinker with words, and the fact that most
people can read certainly encourages many more - too many more - to try
their hand at literature, but good writers do not spring fully armed from
their own thighs any more than composers.

The musical master-pupil relationships he outlines so nicely are equally
vital for the nurture of writing talent.  So is the kind of peer group
stimulus that is the main benefit of the "Conservatoire" route.

Mary-Anne Evans, the Brontes, Mrs Gaskell are no exception to any of
this.  English miniaturist Jane Austen may be accounted a special case, but
she points to the real difference - that writers don't need a performing
tradition to learn their craft, whilst composers do (or did before the
synthesiser).

The paucity of substantial female playwrights before the second half of the
20th century is a better parallel.  It's certainly not that writing plays
is technically any more demanding than writing novels, rather that the
theatre and the concert hall were not considered suitable proving grounds
for middle-class young ladies, whatever they chose to do in private.

No surprise, therefore, that women's artistic endeavours tended to be
channelled into the one field which offered at least some promise of public
recognition - though even here, of course, "George Eliot" and "Acton Bell"
were not masks donned for fun.

Steve's example of Tilly Olsen's block, and the decidedly non- technical
reasons for it, seems much nearer the mark.  Artistic endeavour needs time
and leisure which is, and remains still, a luxury for 95% of people on this
planet - and most of them, alas, women.  At which point I allow myself one,
complacent little sigh.

This surely points less to male stupidity than it does to male cunning.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"