Page 284 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes male prerogative, effected in women writers a psychologicalduplicity that projected a monstrous
counter figure to the idealized heroine, typified by Bertha Rochester, the madwoman in Charlotte
Bronte's Jane Eyre ; such a figure is "usually in some sense the author's double, an image of her
own anxiety and rage" (Gilbert & Gubar, 1979). There are three main concerns of gynocriticism.
One concern is to identify what are taken to be the distinctively feminine subject matters in
literature written by women? the world of domesticity, for example, or the special experiences of
gestation, giving birth, and nurturing, or mother-daughter and woman-woman relations? in which
personal and affectional issues, and not external activism, are the primary interests. Another
concern is to uncover in literary history a female tradition, incorporated in sub-communities of
women writers who were aware of, emulated, and found support in earlier women writers who in
turn provide models and emotional support to their own readers and successors. A third
undertaking is to show that there is a distinctive feminine mode of experience, or "subjectivity," in
thinking, feeling, valuing, and perceiving oneself and the outer world. Related to this is the
attempt to specify the traits of a "woman's language," or distinctively feminine style of speech and
writing, in sentence structure, types of relations between the elements of a discourse, and
characteristic figures and imagery. Some feminists have turned their critical attention to the great
number of women's domestic and "sentimental" novels, which are noted in derogatory fashion in
standard literary histories, yet which dominated the market for fiction in the nineteenth century
and produced most of the best-sellers of the time; instances of this last critical enterprise are Elaine
Showalter's A literature of their own: British women novelists from Bronte to Lessing (1977) on
British writers, and Nina Baym's Woman's fiction: A guide to novels by and about women in
America, 1820-1870 (1978). Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar have described the later history of
women's writings in No man's land: The place of the woman writer in the twentieth century. Just
as Showalter said, "gynocritics is related to feminist research in history, anthropology, psychology,
and sociology, all of which have developed hypotheses of a female subculture including not only
the ascribed status, and the internalized constructs of feminity, but also the occupations, interactions,
and consciousness of women" (Showalter, 1979).
25.2. The Contribution of Gynocriticism

The main tasks of gynocritics are to reorder the list of literary canon and uncover some "silent"
female writers; to analyze "female creativity" and the specificity of female literary tradition. Based
on these tasks, the contribution of gynocriticism can be found in many areas in feminist criticism.
We will discuss its contribution from three aspects: the object, theoretical achievement, and quality
of its study.
The Object of Gynocriticism: Reordering of the Literary Canon
The goal of gynocriticism is to enlarge and reorder the literary canon that is, the set of works
which by accumulative consensus, have come to be considered major and to serve as the chief
subjects of literary history, criticism, scholarship, and teaching. In a literature of their own,
Showalter uncovered a group of female writers. However, she neglected the black and lesbian
female writers. But soon, the feminist critic discovered their careless omission, and they began to
"excavate" the black and lesbian female writers and their works. All in all, in gynocriticism,
feminist studies have served to raise the status of many female authors who aremore or less
scanted by scholars and critics and to bring into purview other authors who have been largely or
entirely overlooked as subjects for serious consideration. Some feminists even have devoted their
critical attention especially to the literature written by lesbian writers, or that deals with lesbian
relationships in a heterosexual culture. The discovery of the general female writers and their
literary works makes the feminist criticism even the whole literary criticism more comprehensive.

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