Page 272 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes Varieties of Feminism
Feminism has engaged in and with other branches of criticism, including Marxist criticism and
deconstruction. Nancy K. Miller and Peggy Kamuf, for example, have incorporated deconstructive
approaches in their work. Judith Lowder Newton and Lillian Robinson have incorporated Marxism.
The movement toward alternative ways of writing, however, involves drastic changes in the
relationship between public and private and the traditional opposition between emotional and
rational. Such an attempt in literature was heralded by Woolf's writing (for example, The Waves,
1931 and To the Lighthouse, 1927) and may be read in the work of Muriel Spark (The Hothouse by
the East River, 1973), Angela Carter (The Passion of New Eve, 1977), Toni Morrison (The Bluest
Eye, 1970), Alice Walker (Meridian, 1976), Marge Piercy (Women on the Edge of Time, 1976),
Margaret Atwood (The Edible Woman, 1969), Joanna Russ (The Female Man, 1975), and Fay
Weldon (The Life and Times of a She-Devil, 1983), among others since.
Perhaps the most agreed-upon accomplishment of feminist criticism (though even in this agreement
there is caution) has been to find and identify a variety of feminine traditions in literature. Numerous
women writers have been "rediscovered," introduced into the literary canon, and examined as
important to the literary tradition. This interest in expanding the study of literature by women has
had a significant impact in colleges and universities. Indeed feminist criticism, by the beginning of
the twenty-first century, had joined with other traditions-Native American, African American,
Asian American, gay and lesbian-in an ongoing effort to celebrate and express diversity in the
ongoing investigation of identity.
23.6 The New Feminist Criticism

During the last decade, the influence of feminist literary theory and criticism has dramatically
increased, not only changing the shape of literary studies but also substantially affecting work in
other fields that are concerned with the definition of interpretive strategies. Because many significant
essays first published in feminist and academic journals have not been widely available, there is
cause to celebrate the publication of ''The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature,
and Theory'' edited by Elaine Showalter, one of its earliest exponents. The 18 essays here are
important both in defining many areas of concern and disagreement that have chiefly occupied
feminist critics in recent years and in suggesting some strengths and weaknesses of one of the
primary theoretical approaches to have emerged.
The first section, ''What Do Feminist Critics Want? The Academy and the Canon,'' usefully explores
assumptions implicit in a literary tradition almost entirely white, male and middle class; it analyzes
why women have been excluded from all accounts of literary influence and identifies and corrects
misreadings of several works by women. The second section, ''Feminist Criticisms and Women's
Cultures,'' raises significant political and theoretical questions about the most appropriate focus
for a feminist critical theory and methodology -the desirable relation of the theory to various
forms of what has come to be referred to as ''male discourse,'' and the theory's capacity to adequately
represent the experiences and perspectives of women diverse in economic and ethnic background
as well as in sexual orientation.
In identifying the qualities unique to women's writing - its points of social reference, its recurrent
images, symbols and themes - the essays in the last part of the collection provide examples of good
practice of theo-retical statements defined earlier in the volume.
Provocative insights and readings may be found throughout the book. Annette Kolodny contrasts
the feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman with Edgar Allan Poe and discovers in Gilman's
short story ''The Yellow Wallpaper'' a revisionist reading of ''The Pit and the Pendulum.'' Susan
Gubar powerfully illuminates the works of several women writers (among them Isak Dinesen and
H. D.) as she analyzes the metaphors and strategies through which they have explored their
creativity. Bonnie Zimmerman struggles with the complexities of defining a lesbian literary esthetic;
and Barbara Smith, in mapping the achievements and potential of black feminist criticism, offers

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