Notes on Gynocriticism and Showalter

Chronology:

    • 1963    Moers, Ellen, Literary Women
    • 1972    Patricia Meyer Spacks  The Female Imagination
    • 1974   Alice Walker    "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens"
    • 1977    Elaine Showalter  A Literature of Their Own
    • 1978   Nina Baym   Women's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by & abt Women in America
    • 1979   Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic

Elaine Showalter "Towards a Feminist Poetics"

    • 1980   Barbara Christian, Black Women Novelists: Development of a Tradition


      Nina Baym"Melodramas of Beset Manhood”

    • 1981   Elaine Showalter, "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness"
    • 1983 Lillian Robinson"Treason Our Text"


      Barbara Christian, "Trajectories of Self-Definition: Placing Contem­porary Afro-American Women's Fiction"

    • 1984 Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, eds, The Norton Anthology of Lit by Women

Susan Spaull, "Gynocriticism"
 

    • What do gynocritics look for?
      • look for how women's writing is different from men's (That may be seen as biological but usually is seen as experiential, psychological, and cultural.) Seek out a "feminine aesthetic"  (CF VW)
      • 4 areas defined by Showlater: language, culture biological psychological
        • language-- is there such a thing as a female/ feminine language? (a "woman's sentence")
          • metaphor
        • plot-- are there archetypal women's plots and characters?
        • Themes-- what udeas and concerns are shared by women writers?
        • why women's lit is not aas highly valued or as often reprinted
        • do women use metaphors differently, or use different metaphors?  Patterns of imagery
        • How women writers use male plots and literary structures to express rebellion, critique (Moers)
        • How women portray characters; differences in subject matter
      • What are the links between women writers; how does female influence work?
      • Is there a coherent "muted" tradaition


Elaine Showalter, "The Female Tadition" (1977: Intro to A Literature of their Own )
 

    • What are the problems that have plagued attempts to define a "female" traditon or aesthetic?
      • "great Tradtionalism" --> tokensim, only the "great" women authors are known; the chain of "minor" authors which made them possible is forgotten
      • Essentialism -- tendency for attempts to define a"female aesthetic" to simply display that critic's stereotypes
    • What is a "female aesthetic"? -- The idea that women's art is different from men's, that they create differently
    • What are the three major phases that Showalter claims all literary sub-cultures evalve through?


 

      • Feminine-- IMITATIVE::    imitation of male (dominant) forms
      • Feminist -- PROTEST AND ADVOCACY:: rebelling against standards and values; critique of doms-- all the negative steroetypes, etc. =CRITIQE
      • female --  SELF-DISCOVERY:: a literature of their own; stop imitating others = GYNOCRITICISM