Feminist literary criticism
Encyclopedia
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism
informed by feminist theory
, or by the politics of feminism
more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot
and Margaret Fuller
to cutting-edge theoretical work in women's studies
and gender studies
by "third-wave
" authors. In the most general and simple terms, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s—in the first
and second wave
s of feminism—was concerned with the politics of women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature.
Since the development of more complex conceptions of gender and subjectivity and third-wave feminism
, feminist literary criticism has taken a variety of new routes, namely in the tradition of the Frankfurt School
's critical theory
. It has considered gender in the terms of Freud
ian and Lacan
ian psychoanalysis
, as part of the deconstruction
of existing relations of power, and as a concrete political investment. It has been closely associated with the birth and growth of queer studies
. And the more traditionally central feminist concern with the representation and politics of women's lives has continued to play an active role in criticism.
Lisa Tuttle
has defined feminist theory as asking "new questions of old texts." She cites the goals of feminist criticism as: (1) To develop and uncover a female tradition of writing, (2) to interpret symbolism of women's writing so that it will not be lost or ignored by the male point of view, (3) to rediscover old texts, (4) to analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective, (5) to resist sexism in literature, and (6) to increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style.
, Nancy Armstrong
, Barbara Bowen, Jennifer DeVere Brody, Laura Brown, Margaret Anne Doody, Eva Figes
, Sandra Gilbert
and Susan Gubar
, Annette Kolodny, Anne McClintock
, Anne K. Mellor, Nancy K. Miller
, Toril Moi
, Felicity Nussbaum, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
, Hortense Spillers, Gayatri Spivak, Irene Tayler, Marina Warner.
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
informed by feminist theory
Feminist theory
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...
, or by the politics of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
and Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism...
to cutting-edge theoretical work in women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
and gender studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
by "third-wave
Third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present...
" authors. In the most general and simple terms, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s—in the first
First-wave feminism
First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It focused on de jure inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage .The term first-wave was coined retroactively in the 1970s...
and second wave
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
s of feminism—was concerned with the politics of women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature.
Since the development of more complex conceptions of gender and subjectivity and third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present...
, feminist literary criticism has taken a variety of new routes, namely in the tradition of the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
's critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
. It has considered gender in the terms of Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
ian and Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
ian psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, as part of the deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
of existing relations of power, and as a concrete political investment. It has been closely associated with the birth and growth of queer studies
Queer studies
Queer studies is the critical theory based study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and cultures. Universities have also labeled this area of analysis Sexual Diversity Studies, Sexualities...
. And the more traditionally central feminist concern with the representation and politics of women's lives has continued to play an active role in criticism.
Lisa Tuttle
Lisa Tuttle
Lisa Tuttle is an American-born science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. She has published over a dozen novels, five short story collections, and several non-fiction titles, including a reference book on feminism. She has also edited several anthologies and reviewed books for various...
has defined feminist theory as asking "new questions of old texts." She cites the goals of feminist criticism as: (1) To develop and uncover a female tradition of writing, (2) to interpret symbolism of women's writing so that it will not be lost or ignored by the male point of view, (3) to rediscover old texts, (4) to analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective, (5) to resist sexism in literature, and (6) to increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style.
Feminist literary critics
Prominent feminist literary critics include Isobel ArmstrongIsobel Armstrong
Isobel Armstrong FBA is a British academic. She is Emeritus Professor of English at Birkbeck, University of London and a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. She is a Fellow of the British Academy....
, Nancy Armstrong
Nancy Armstrong
Nancy Armstrong is a scholar, critic and is a professor of English at Duke University.-Overview:Before moving to Duke, Armstrong was the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Comparative Literature, English, Modern Culture & Media, and Gender Studies at Brown University...
, Barbara Bowen, Jennifer DeVere Brody, Laura Brown, Margaret Anne Doody, Eva Figes
Eva Figes
Eva Figes is an English author.Figes has written novels, literary criticism, studies of feminism, and vivid memoirs relating to her Berlin childhood and later experiences as a Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany. She arrived in Britain in 1939 with her parents and a younger brother...
, Sandra Gilbert
Sandra Gilbert
Sandra M. Gilbert , Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Davis, is an influential literary critic and poet who has published widely in the fields of feminist literary criticism, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic criticism...
and Susan Gubar
Susan Gubar
Dr. Susan D. Gubar is an American academic and Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. She is co-author with Dr. Sandra M. Gilbert of the standard feminist text, The Madwoman in the Attic and a trilogy on women's writing in the twentieth century.Her book...
, Annette Kolodny, Anne McClintock
Anne McClintock
Anne McClintock is a renowned writer, feminist scholar and public intellectual who has published widely on issues of sexuality, race, imperialism, and nationalism; popular and visual culture, photography, advertising and cultural theory. Her work has influenced a wide variety of disciplines...
, Anne K. Mellor, Nancy K. Miller
Nancy K. Miller
Nancy K. Miller is an American literary scholar and memoirist.Currently a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center, Miller is the author of several books on feminist criticism, women’s writing, and most recently, family memoir, biography, and...
, Toril Moi
Toril Moi
Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway...
, Felicity Nussbaum, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory , and critical theory. Her critical writings helped create the field of queer studies...
, Hortense Spillers, Gayatri Spivak, Irene Tayler, Marina Warner.
See also
- Feminist film theoryFeminist film theoryFeminist film theory is theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analysed and their theoretical underpinnings.-History:...
- Feminist theoryFeminist theoryFeminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...
- Literary criticismLiterary criticismLiterary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
- Women's writing in EnglishWomen's writing in EnglishWomen's writing as a discrete area of literary studies is based on the notion that the experience of women, historically, has been shaped by their gender, and so women writers by definition are a group worthy of separate study...
- Feminist Exegesis
Further reading
- Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
. Gender Trouble. ISBN 0-415-92499-5. - Sandra GilbertSandra GilbertSandra M. Gilbert , Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Davis, is an influential literary critic and poet who has published widely in the fields of feminist literary criticism, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic criticism...
and Susan GubarSusan GubarDr. Susan D. Gubar is an American academic and Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. She is co-author with Dr. Sandra M. Gilbert of the standard feminist text, The Madwoman in the Attic and a trilogy on women's writing in the twentieth century.Her book...
. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. ISBN 0-300-08458-7. - Toril MoiToril MoiToril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway...
. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. ISBN 0-415-02974-0; ISBN 0-415-28012-5 (second edition). - Rita FelskiRita FelskiRita Felski is William R. Kenan, Jr. , Professor of English at the University of Virginia, and editor of New Literary History. Felski is a prominent scholar in the fields of aesthetics and literary theory, feminist theory, modernity and postmodernity, and cultural studies...
, "Literature After Feminism" ISBN 0-226-24115-7 - Annette KolodnyAnnette KolodnyAnnette Kolodny is a feminist literary critic and activist, and currently holds the position of College of Humanities Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Arizona in Tucson...
. "Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism." - Adele ReinhartzAdele ReinhartzAdele Reinhartz is a Canadian academic and a specialist in the history and literature of Christianity and Judaism in the Greco-Roman period, the Gospel of John, early Jewish-Christian relations, literary criticism including feminist literary criticism, feminist exegesis, and the impact of the Bible...
. "Jewish Women's Scholarly Writings on the Bible." - Elisabeth FiorenzaElisabeth Schüssler FiorenzaElisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is a feminist theologian. She received her Theologicum , Lic. Theol., University of Würzburg, Thoel.D. from the University of Munster, Germany. She identifies as Catholic and her work is generally in the context of Christianity, although much of her work has broader...
, feminist Bible scholar.
External links
- The "Feminist Theory and Criticism" article series from the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (subscription required):