Feminist Literary Criticism

Amy Lowell was long ago thrown into the heap of amusing literary footnotes. Critical perception of a writer is one with the critical construction of that writer. No matter how obvious the point is to a post-structuralist crowd, it is in examples such as the moulding of Lowell’s posthumous image that the monstrous injustices we are capable of become apparent. But consider the difference between Dickinson as spinster recluse, or as “Vesuvius at home”. Consider the difference between Woolf as tormented angel, or as fun-loving criminal (see the ‘Dreadnought Hoax’). Now consider Lowell as a fat cigar-wielding lesbian joke, or as a universally seductive, awe-inspiringly astute, creatively exceptional, and absolutely compelling Diva.
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“Amy Lowell, Diva Poet”. FWSA online. published 21 Nov 2013.
Review of:  Melissa Bradshaw. 'Amy Lowell, Diva Poet'. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.

En 2017, des étudiantes et des étudiants qui préparent un concours de l'enseignementl'agrégation de lettres-écrivent une lettre à leur jury pour que ce dernier clarifie sa position face aux textes qui représentent des violences sexuelles dans le patrimoine littéraire. Le texte visé est un poème de Chénier dont les enseignants prétendent qu'il ne met pas en scène un viol alors que les étudiantes et les étudiants, regroupées sous l'étiquette des "Salopettes", prétendent que oui. En apparence, le problème est très simple mais en réalité... En France, c'est un crime de représenter des minorités en les infériorisant, en revanche, on peut tout à fait chanter un tabassage ou un meurtre, un désir de meurtre, de femmes sans aucun problème (Orelsan, chanson " Sale pute"). Dans cette lignée, en amont, en 2017, avec l'initiative des Salopettes, il apparait vital que soit reconnue l'étiquette de "viol" pour décrire la scène représentée par le poète Chénier. Mais personne n'est d'accord sur le sujet ! Notamment Hélène Merlin-Kajman, qui a écrit depuis un livre entier à ce propos : "La Littérature à l'heure de #metoo". Le texte qui suit est une contribution au débat rédigée sous la forme d'une lettre adressée à Hélène Merlin-Kajman.

When Marcella Bencivenni invited me to edit this tribute to Louise DeSalvo for Italian American Review, we agreed that, given the scope of the journal, we wanted to hear from authors who were not part of an exclusively literary circle. We wanted to include authors who came from or engaged with different disciplinary approaches. We trusted their perspectives would shed light on the wide-ranging, transdisciplinary influence of Louise DeSalvo. Through personal, intimate, often vulnerable responses, Nancy Carnevale, George De Stefano, Donna R. Gabaccia, John Gennari, Stanislao Pugliese, and Laura Ruberto testify to the power of the legacy Louise has left her fellow citizens of the diverse world of the written word. Her writing was self-empowering, but it was also profoundly empowering and transformative for readers, writers, scholars. This tribute recognizes Louise DeSalvo’s enormously important literary and cultural legacy but also asserts our responsibility to give this author due rec...

There is no doubt that Oscar Wilde is one of the most acclaimed as well as criticised authors of his century. To this day he is admired for his wit and sharp dialogue. Born in 1854, Wild was a writer of the Victorian Era. Looking back at the Victorian Era through descriptions of life and society an image appears of a rigid society characterised by prudishness, tradition and strict social codes, which is precisely what Wilde commented on and satirised in his comedies of society. Born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family (BBC) and later educated at both Trinity College in Dublin and at Oxford, Wilde grew up associating with the upper classes. His parents were both intellectuals, his father a surgeon and his mother a writer (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). She introduced Wilde to the world of poetry already at a young age (Sandulescu 53) and it could be suggested that this ignited his passion for writing, which he would come to dedicate his life to. Having graduated from Oxford, Wilde relocated to London where he settled down to focus on his writing. In London, Wilde entered the fashionable cultural and literary circles of high society, thus naturally gaining access to the world his social criticism would be based on. Through placing the criticising commentary in between the lines instead of overtly, his four comedies of society mocked Victorian society and its values on its own conditions.
The Victorian Era was a time of change and development. The trade markets were increasing, British Imperialism was at its peak and English society lived under strict rules of the ”English” proper ways of behaviour. As portrayed in various literary works of the time, there was a strong aspiration for social climbing such as gaining wealth, marrying into higher social classes or trying to get a higher education. For members of the Victorian society, reputation was highly important and scandal was to be avoided at all costs. Women of the time were supposed to take the role of the ”Angel in the House”, following a set ideal of being ”devoted, docile wives and mothers; paragons of domesticity, virtue and humility” (British Library). Until the middle of the 19th century, it was not considered necessary for women to get an education as they were supposed to marry. However, it was important that women had various skills such as singing, painting and playing instruments in order to entertain both her husband and his guests. In the middle of the 19th-century schools such as Queen’s College in London were established which gave governesses better qualifications (Picard). Towards the end of the century female education increased and soon women began to demand the vote.

Personal endeavour and research project into the genesis and evolution of Gothic literature from 17th Century to the present day. Feel free to cite. Informative, accessible and thoroughly-researched. Also was a passion project, not aligned with my current academic degree.

Anton Chekov’s The Bear is famous for the conflict between a male character, Smirnov and a female character, Popov. Readers can see that Popov is treated rudely by Smirnov. The writer aims to analyze Smirnov’s negative attitude toward Popov by using feminism criticism theory. The data is collected with qualitative method. The analysis shows that Smirnov intimidates Popov verbally with a lot of rude remarks about women. He accuses women of being lazy, deceitful, and unfaithful.

The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1986, and this article won the Florence Howe Prize for Best Feminist Essay from the MLA Women's Caucus in 1988. It shows how many of the tropes characteristic of letter fiction are deployed in Atwood's novel. By contextualizing it with Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, and The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters (which is discussed more fully in my first book, Discourses of Desire: Gender, Genre and Epistolary Fictions), I explain how Atwood writes a history of the present -- and future. (A thesis that has certainly been proven by Hulu's TV series and the numerous adaptations in cinema, theater, and opera!) Drawing on de Beauvoir and feminist theory, Foucault and critical theory, I show how Atwood stamps her text with a distinctively postmodern postmark.

Different cultures have different conceptions of fate but share parallel metaphors for this phenomenon in the personified forms of goddesses (and mythic women) and the non-personified forms of cloth and thread. This study proposes that such common fate- metaphors are archetypal.

The archetypal expressions of fate examined in this dissertation include crafters, wielders, and agents of fate—the Weaver, the Foreteller, and the Summoner—as well as material channels of fate, the Thread and the Cloth.

The archetypal Weaver is the maker of opportunity. She spins, plies, or weaves fate and sometimes does other textile-related work that closely involves fate—like the Morrigan washing the garments of those doomed to die in battle. The Weaver archetype has two aspects: one weaves harmony, and the other weaves discord.

The archetypal Foreteller speaks fate before it comes to pass. She stitches an interwoven image (the foretold phenomenon) into the fabric of life by providing the “vocal woof” to the warp threads of fate.

The archetypal Summoner draws someone toward her allotted fate, at times pulling on the thread of fate itself. Summoners regularly take the shape of personal gods, guides (psychopomps), or spirit doubles, but they are not always on such intimate terms with those they summon. The perilous Sirens, for example, summon anyone who chances to hear them. Summoners often appear in myth as shape-shifters.

The archetypal Thread essentially connects and represents the most potently fundamental and transformative experiences known to the human condition: birth, death, life, and love. The goddesses of fate craft each fate-thread, usually near the time of birth or conception.

The archetypal Cloth symbolizes a complex, creative, and harmonious interweaving of many strands into a single, unified whole—an important metaphor for the fate of individuals, families, and society. Throughout history women have been the primary (often the only) makers of cloth—which is associated with fortune of every kind—thus the Cloth archetype and the fateful power of the Feminine are inextricably bound.

KEYWORDS: comparative mythology, archetypal psychology, feminist literary criticism, Irish mythology, Táin Bó Cúailnge, Fedelm, Freyja, seiðr, Darraðarljóð, wool-work

The aim of this essay is to analyze misogyny in the eighteenth-century novel through the representation of women in Defoe’s work and to evaluate the degree to which Defoe’s work itself can be considered misogynistic. In order to do so, I will examine  Defoe’s previous works and how they influenced the representation of women in his novels with different rhetoric to that of his contemporaries. I will look at various approaches to Defoe’s works, arguing within the context of gender-specific commodification in Scheuermann’s, Laura Brown’s explication of Roxana as proto-feminist and Helen Moglen´s approach. Most importantly, I will present what I consider to be a new interpretation of Daniel Defoe’s heroines.

Beside accepted with surprise across the world, the winning of Brexit referendum also brings up the tangled web into the United Kingdom's political and cultural realms. Recent studies mention there is correlation between the voting behavior and issues of identity, immigration, and Islamophobia. Kamila Shamsie alludes these issues in her latest novel, Home Fire (2017). By focusing on three main protagonists, this close-textual analysis examines how Pakistani diasporic community construct their identities within the novel. To support the analysis, this article draws upon Hall's identity theory (1990) and Bhabha's Unhomely (1992). Research findings show how Shamsie's novel represents heterogeneity within Pakistani Muslims diasporic identities, rather than frame them within single collective identity. Therefore, the novel criticizes Eurocentric biases point of view by portraying Muslim female protagonists' fluid identities while defending their Muslimness by using veil and praying to God. On the other hand, the novel maintains established stereotype by drawing Muslim male protagonist's affiliation with Daesh as representation of radical group to problematize the notion of radicalism.

This article puts forward a queer interpretation of PBS’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1989), adapted from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s canonical story. It is structured in three parts: an approach to the term queer, a reading of the queerness (and feminism) of Gilman’s text and an analysis of the queer (and feminist) aspects of the film. The third part also responds to the only academic essay about PBS’s production, by Janet Beer, which ignores the movie’s queer character. This section discusses the queer treatment of topics—the instability of identity, autoeroticism, lesbian tendencies, mental illness, women’s solidarity, and gender and class inequalities—while dialoguing with film critics such as Linda Hutcheon and Laura Mulvey. The queer use of formal resources—light, shots, sound, music, symbolism and scene-motifs—is also highlighted. My ultimate aim is to demonstrate that The Yellow Wallpaper is an innovative queer adaptation of Gilman’s piece for a modern audience.

Mary Leapor, Mary Scott, Joanna Southcott, Lucy Aikin, and their peers collectively articulate what I call women's “superior secondariness.” To counter an eighteenth-century culture that represented man as “primary” (universal and originary) and woman as “secondary” (derivative and dependent), these poets posited the secondary not as inferior or less, but as a necessary, often highly desirable, condition of women's belatedness. Advocating revision and renaming, these writers developed a distinctive feminist poetics of improvement in order to express women's ascendency as the sex that comes second in time, whether as a refined Eve in relation to a rudimentary Adam, or as the revisionary woman poet in relation to the originary masculine classic author. Taken together, their rewritings of Original Sin, human origins, English poetry, and Britain's progress transformed the discourse of secondariness, often used to deride women's verse as inferior in the period, into a feminist position of power. In tracing the ordering function of superior secondariness from 1751 to 1810, the present essay returns to Enlightenment literary form to understand poetry's vital role in inaugurating the feminist projects of historicizing the associations between women writers and theorizing the gender of aesthetic production.

This study aims to analyze the representation and construction of the woman subject in the novels Pepita Jiménez of Juan Valera and Memorias de un solterón of Emilia Pardo Bazán, in the light of feminist literary criticism, mostly based on poststructuralist feminist literary criticism. The analysis focuses on the main female characters in both novels; Pepita in the first novel and Feíta in the second novel. The objective of this investigation is to find out thematically and formally, through these characters, to what extent the language used in these texts corresponds to and/or differs from constructs of woman and gender discourse which were dominant in the time when the texts were written. The texts to be analyzed in this study are associated with the political, cultural and literary background of Spain in the second half of the 19th century. The study intends to find out formal aspects of the texts which will enable us to take on a critical approach towards patriarchal points of view of the time and woman's role within the system. Techniques of deconstruction and psychoanalysis will allow us to trace the construction of woman in the texts.
Key Words: Juan Valera, Pepita Jiménez, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Memorias de un solterón, woman, gender, feminist literary theory, poststructuralist feminist criticism.

The nightingale in Romantic poetry symbolises poetic expression and its relationship to nature. It was typically a symbol of melancholy, since the nightingale’s call resounds in the darkness of night. Samuel Taylor Coleridge transforms the nightingale into a symbol of joy and oneness with nature in ‘The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem’ (1798), in turn recasting the relationship between poet and poetry, poet and nature, as un-problematical. In stark contrast is Charlotte Smith’s ‘Sonnet III. To a Nightingale’ (1784), where the nightingale fulfils a typical melancholy symbolism, which nonetheless functions afresh in order to depict female poetic expression, especially through the nightingale’s mythic connotations. The poetess’ relationship to expression and nature contradicts Coleridge’s expression of oneness and joy. For the pastoral male poet perhaps ‘in nature there is nothing melancholy’ (15), but for the poetess a relationship to nature and expression can’t be carefree, since her gender necessitates that she interact with the reality of melancholy.

In this paper, I strive to demonstrate how Jeanette Winterson, in The Powerbook, challenges the binary functioning of the Western Tradition and enacts the blurring of boundaries between male and female gender, between material and virtual
ontologies, and between author and text, thus exposing the fluidity of these apparently opposing categories. Winterson‟s text is explored in ways that show how she, by writing
in a way that can be related to Donna Haraway‟s cyborg manifesto and to Karen Barad‟s agential realist ontology, both confronts the idea of a self-evident author and makes evident how both sides of the binary “intra-act,” a term suggested by Barad, and contaminate each other.

Re-reading of certain important colonial texts like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) may prove to be quite interesting, particularly from feminist point of view. To prove thereby women’s peripheral role as counter to their male counterparts, this paper has taken three women characters- Marlow’s old aunt, Kurtz’s Intended, and his African Mistress. This discussion tries to prove Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a record of patriarchy, female subjugation, oppression and ignorance while treating women as ‘the other’ in the society. So Conrad’s decentring the women is our basic point of argument and contention. The present paper seeks to expose the novel’s intention of making women characters as inferior, incomplete, underdeveloped and even sketchy.

Keywords: Periphery, Patriarchy, Ideology, Subjugation, Feminism, Marginalization, the Other.

Since the 70's, feminist authors have raised the issue of female writing, addressing the possibility of a “women's literature” essentially distinctive from masculine texts. Also, in case this literature exists, what would be its fundamental traits. This text critically reviews some of the feminist positions in this debate, taking into consideration contributions from postmodernist theory,  queer perspectives and the work developed by authors such as Judith Butler and Teresa de Lauretis. Finally, it also discusses the possibilities of an “embodied writing”.

Key words: women and literature, female writing, feminist theory, gender, body
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Diversas autoras feministas han tratado la cuestión de la escritura femenina desde la década de los 70. En este debate se cuestionan si se puede hablar de una “literatura de mujeres”  esencialmente distinta de los textos masculinos. En caso de que existiera, si cuales serían sus características.  En este artículo, por un lado se realiza una revisión crítica de algunas de las propuestas feministas en torno a la cuestión de la escritura femenina. Por otro lado, el tema se replantea a partir de algunas de las aportaciones del postmodernismo y de la perspectiva queer, especialmente a partir del trabajo de autoras como Judith Butler y Teresa de Lauretis. Finalmente, se propone la noción de escritura con/desde el cuerpo.

Palabras clave: mujeres y literatura, escritura femenina, teoría feminista, género, cuerpo

This paper aims to reassess the role of sister- and siblinghood in the fragmentary 'Tereus' of Sophocles, a play unusual in its dramatization of a close and collaborative relationship between two sisters. The plot hinges on their recognition and reunion, and the all-female bond of sisterhood is shown to outweigh both wife-husband and mother-son obligations. Finally, a close reading of three fragments suggests that the play was characterized by the language and imagery of siblinghood, reflecting the thematic centrality of sisterhood to this tragedy.

By mid-nineteenth century, Cecilia Böhl de Faber decides to come to the literary fore by publishing a series of novels that soon became models of a new narrative trend. From the beginning, her intention was to build her own distinctive space, morally opposed to George Sand, and one which did not coincide with the main authorial paradigm of Romanticism (the genius, as exemplified by George Sand or Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda), nor with the values that women's literature affirmed as belonging to their own sex (according to Carolina Coronado). Through the masculine pseudonym of Fernán Caballero, she challenged those other previous formulas, stressed the importance of her innovative proposal and set the ground for the realistic narrative model.

The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the great story-telling tradition of Indian antiquity. The mythical and legendary tales as well as folktales have provided a fertile soil for the modern Indian short story to germinate. Beginning towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Indian short story flourished in the twentieth century. It became evident by the end of the past century that the canon is attuned to Indian landscape whose heterogeneous people and their diverse experiences it reflects so faithfully. The Indian short story as a distinct genre resembles a “multicoloured glass” scattering myriad hues which is analogous to the diversity of our country itself. The variegated and unbeaten genre righteously deserves critical attention which it has been deprived of.

With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.

Sylvia Plath’s roman-a-clef, The Bell Jar (1963), remains a commercial and critical success more than a half-a-century after its initial publication. I suggest that one of the reasons for the novel’s enduring popularity is Plath’s exploration of the connections between clothing and identity. Drawing upon the work of sociologists, fashion historians, and literary scholars, I contend that Plath uses protagonist Esther Greenwood’s vexed relationship with her wardrobe to demonstrate how the discourses of fashion that dominated American women’s magazines in the 1950s functioned to limit women’s personal and professional options. For Plath, I argue, Esther’s failure to find herself through fashion is indicative of white, middle-class women’s problematic position in a culture that defines them as both consumers and commodities in a male-dominated heterosexual marketplace.

Marian MacAlpin, the protagonist of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, is a "marvellously normal" (Atwood 207) young woman. However, at one point-coinciding with the acceptance of her partner's marriage proposal-something goes utterly wrong. Her body, in an act of revolt, refuses to accept more and more food; it becomes an increasingly independent, as if exterior entity. While trying to fight off this impenetrable rebellion, Marian comes to face social norms she is supposed to comply with as a woman, finding them indeed indigestible. Written in 1965 and published in 1969, The Edible Woman touches upon issues that are still relevant for the contemporary reader. This article examines Margaret Atwood's novel within the framework indebted to the recent shift of feminist studies towards fragility: a notion that no longer has to entail mere passivity or surrender. Aiming at an exploration of the theme of a fragile corporeal protest, this article juxtaposes the revolt of Marian's body with such tropes and categories as fluidity and containment, abjection, agency, and becoming in order to trace the dual nature of corporeal resistance presented in the novel.

UNBOUND "Humour with wit, sharpened on the anvil of an alert feminism shape the poems of Sanjukta Dasgupta. They sweep along with stylistic shifts, an astonishing range of diverse themes-gods, goddesses, iconic literary figures, or actual incidents that shook the conscience of a nation. If the anguish of an entire city rises in the brilliant poem "Reconstructed", irony tiptoes with a mother's deceptive insouciance to implode inside our mind in the spare, minimalist "The Art of Lying". To read Dasgupta is to see the world with smarting eyes." Lakshmi Kannan "In fevered frenzy the poem writes itself' says the poet Sanjukta Dasgupta, and this is the credo her poems seem to be following. This is trigger-tense poetry at its best. One is surprised that despite the precipitous pace of some of her poems, she has the time to look around our familiar world, find red ants in clusters for instance, while 'we stand alone/ Miners with no headlamps.'" Poet Jaydeep  Sarangi and Tagore scholar Sanghita Sanyalhave done it elegantly.

Artiklu akkademiku preżentat waqt il-Konferenza Doreen Micallef nhar is-Sibt 3 ta' Diċembru 2011 fil-Kavallier ta' San Ġakbu l-Belt Valletta f'għeluq l-10 snin mill-mewt tal-poetessa Doreen Micallef. L-istudju jinsab ippubblikat fil-ktieb 'Doreen Micallef: Il-Konferenza', Ed. Victor Fenech, pubblikazzjoni tal-Akkademja tal-Malti u Klabb Kotba Maltin, 2015.

For centuries, the story of Lot’s daughters in Genesis is one which has both abhorred and intrigued countless readers. Utilizing the hermeneutical lenses of Narrative and Feminist Criticism, this paper draws attention to overlooked details in the narrative. The story is also contrasted with that of the Levite’s Concubine in Judges 19. The result of this study concludes that the narrative has been misread by past interpreters, arguing that the eldest daughter intentionally sought to deceive her younger sister for the intention of shaming their father as retribution for endangering their lives in Sodom. It proposes that the narrative of Gen. 19.30-38 is a dramatic representation by its author of divine irony and a strikingly pro-feminine text for the patriarchal society in which and to which it was written.

Sylvia Plath’s roman-a-clef, The Bell Jar (1963), remains a commercial and critical success more than a half-a-century after its initial publication. I suggest that one of the reasons for the novel’s enduring popularity is Plath’s exploration of the connections between clothing and identity. Drawing upon the work of sociologists, fashion historians, and literary scholars, I contend that Plath uses protagonist Esther Greenwood’s vexed relationship with her wardrobe to demonstrate how the discourses of fashion that dominated American women’s magazines in the 1950s functioned to limit women’s personal and professional options. For Plath, I argue, Esther’s failure to find herself through fashion is indicative of white, middle-class women’s problematic position in a culture that defines them as both consumers and commodities in a male-dominated heterosexual marketplace.

In the Hebrew Bible various types of dress and adornments are described as worn by men and women on different occasions and for different activities. Some adornments celebrate the excellence of the person adorned; others, however, may be seen as masking deceit. Moreover, dress is considered important enough to be described frequently, and it is sometimes crucial in the narrative—Joseph’s long-sleeved coat immediately springing to mind. Items of clothing can have an indispensable function in the biblical plot. This crucial function is exercised through the part played by clothing and insignia in both the creation, and description, of biblical characters. Main characters are rarely depicted as naked; the body is certainly never described in its unclothed state.4 Moreover, the clothes surrounding the body of each human character create, extend or alter its sphere of influence, inscribing role, status and the means to act.

Feminism is a woman's rights movement that promotes the social, political and financial balance of both sexual orientations. Feminists trust in the equivalent accessibility of chances, and break even with treatment for both sexes. Feminism properly begun in nineteenth century till then woman for a considerable length of time were dealt with as inferior all around the globe. The development of feminism experienced diverse formative stages which are named as "waves". Throughout the years distinctive assortments of women's activist theory have created named as Radical Feminism, Liberal Feminism , Social Feminism , Cultural women's liberation and so on. Feminist literary criticism formally started in 1960s is a criticism that tries to delineate and break down the routes in which literature portrays male domination concerning female body by exploring the financial, social, political, and mental powers installed inside of writing. The dynamic atmosphere of May 1968 offered rise to current French feminist criticism. In America feminist criticism got a noteworthy spur from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Twentieth-century British feminist criticism might be said to begin with Virginia Woolf .