Page 288 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 26 : Elaine Showalter: Four Models of Feminism
in 'Ferminist Criticism in the Wilderness'

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
26.1 Social and Cultural Background
26.2 The Text
26.3 Its Contribution
26.4 Possible Application
26.5 Summary
26.6 Key-Words
26.7 Review Questions
26.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to :
• Analyse Elaine Showalter’s 1981 essay, ‘Feminine Criticism in the Wilderness’ with reference
to the position of women teachers and critics vis-a-vis the academy.

Introduction

American theorist Elaine Showalter, born in 1941 studied at Bryn Mawr College, an Ivy League
institution and the University of California. As teacher and researcher in English and Women’s
Studies she has been at various American universities, including Rutgers and Princeton. She has
worked on literary history, having published A Literature of Their Own : Women Writers from Bronte
to Lessing (1977) and on the relationship between women’s literatures and the women’s movement
in the United States.
In a 1979 essay, Showalter hijacks a stuffy patriarchal description by Leon Edel of the archetypal
American feminist theorist’... an auburn-haired young woman, obviously American, who wore
ear-rings and carried an armful of folders and an attache case’ (Showalter, 125). Showalter’s wry
response I think suggests— underneath the comedy — the difficulties of her position.
I suppose we should be grateful that at least one woman ... makes an appearance in this [imaginary]
gathering, even if she is not invited to join the debate. I imagine that she is a feminist critic — in
fact, if I could afford to take taxis to the British Museum [the site of this gathering] I would think
they had perhaps seen me — and it is pleasing to think that while the men stand gossiping in the
sun, she is inside hard at work. But these are scant satisfactions when we realise that of all the
approaches to English studies current in the 1970’s, feminist criticism is the most isolated and the
least understood.
First there is the problem of the woman scholar trying to position herself in the academy which is
patriarchal in the assumptions it makes and the power-structures through which it deals. A woman-
researcher can only seem a caricature to such an academy, a deviation from the norm or an absurd
travesty. Next there is the way in which such a woman scholar creates space for herself. Showalter
begins by inverting assumptions made by patriarchy. Patriarchy depends on the notion that what
men do is important. Women either idle or gossip. Showalter stands this idea on its head. Then
there is the problem of an American gate crashing the academy which so far—even as the prescribed

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