Women Writing And Writing About Women (routledge Library Editions: Women, Feminism And Literature)

This innovative collection of contemporary essays in feminist literary criticism provides a spectrum of approaches and positions, united by their common focus on writing by and about women. Spanning the novel, poetry, drama, film and criticism, the contributors emphasise some of the problems of theory and practice posed by writing as a woman and by women 's representation in literature. The subjects of individual essays range from the nineteenth and twentieth century novel to avant-garde film, and from Victorian women poets to Russian women poets of today. Drawing on disciplines as diverse as structuralism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, socio-linguistics and Marxist analyses of literature, the essays suggest the variety and vigour of contemporary feminist literary criticism, as well as representing some of the debates currently animating it. Topics of common concern range from the nature of a women 's tradition in literature to the scope and method of feminist literary criticism itself. Successfully bridging the gap between literary criticism and literary production, the scope of this collection will be of considerable interest to those concerned with current developments in literary criticism as well as to those in the field of women 's studies. Focusing on the ways in which female novelists have, in their creative work, challenged or scrutinised contemporary assumptions about their own sex, this book's critical interest in women's fiction shows how mid-nineteenth-century women writers confront the conflict between the pressures of matrimonial ideologies and the often more attractive alternative of single or professional life. In arguing that the tensions and dualities of their work represent the honest confrontation of their own ambivalence rather than attempted conformity to convention, it calls for a fresh look at patterns of imaginative representation in Victorian women's literature. Making extensive use of letters and non-fiction, this study relates the opinions expressed there to the themes and methods of the fictional narratives. The first chapter outlines the social and ideological framework within which the authors were writing; the subsequent five chapters deal with the individual novelists, Craik, Charlotte Bronté, Sewell, Gaskell, and Eliot, examining the works of each and also pointing to the similarities between them, thus suggesting a shared female 'voice'. Dealing with minor writers as well as better-known figures, it opens up new areas of critical investigation, claiming not only that many nineteenth-century female novelists have been undeservedly neglected but also that the major ones are further illuminated by being considered alongside their less familiar contemporaries Front Cover 1 New: Women Writing and Writing about Women 3 New: Copyright Page 4 Old: Women Writing and Writing about Women 5 Old: Copyright Page 6 Contents 7 Preface and Acknowledgements 8 The Difference of View: Mary Jacobus 11 1. Towards a Feminist Poetics: Elaine Showalter 23 2. The Buried Letter: Feminism and Romanticism in Villette: Mary Jacobus 43 3. The Indefinite Disclosed: Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson Cora Kaplan 62 4. Beyond Determinism: George Eliot and Virginia Woolf: Gillian Beer 81 5. Sue Bridehead and the New Woman: John Goode 101 6. Ibsen and the Language of Women: Inga-Stina Ewbank 115 7. Poetry and Conscience: Russian Women Poets of the Twentieth Century: Elaine Feinstein 134 8. Writing as a Woman: Anne Stevenson 160 9. Feminism, Film and the Avant-garde: Laura Mulvey 178 Index 197 Jacobus, M. The Difference Of View. -- Showalter, E. Towards A Feminist Poetics. -- Jacobus, M. The Buried Letter: Feminism And Romanticism In Villette. -- Kaplan, C. The Indefinite Disclosed: Christina Rossetti And Emily Dickinson. -- Beer, G. Beyond Determinism: George Eliot And Virginia Woolf. -- Goode, J. Sue Bridehead And The New Woman. -- Ewbank, I.-s. Ibsen And The Language Of Women. -- Feinstein, E. Poetry And Conscience: Russian Women Poets Of The Twentieth Century. -- Stevenson, A. Writing As A Woman. -- Mulvey, L. Feminism, Film And The Avant-garde. Edited By Mary Jacobus. Originally Delivered As Lectures At Oxford During The Summer Of 1978 Under The General Heading 'women And Literature'. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Over the past several years, the question of men's relation to feminism has become a fiercely and sometimes bitterly debated subject. "Engendering Men" demonstrates the creative impact that feminist modes of inquiry have already had on a new generation of male critics. In the wake of feminism, many men have found it imperative to begin the task of retheorizing the male position in our culture. This collection of new essays brings together seventeen male critics whose work - on poetry, fiction, the Broadway stage, film and television, and broader cultural and psychoanalytic texts - is opening up new avenues in criticism, as well as in gender and feminist theory This collection of new feminist essays represents the work of young critics researching and teaching in British Universities. Aiming to set the agenda for feminist criticism in the nineties, the essays debate themes crucial to the development of feminist thought: among them, the problems of gendered knowledge and the implications of accounts of gendered language, cultural restraints on the representation of sexuality, women's agency, cultural and political change, a feminist aesthetics and new readings of race and class. This variety is given coherence by a unity of aim - to forge new femin What is the relationship between feminist critical theory and literature?This book deals with the relationship between women and writing, mothers and daughters, the maternal and history. It addresses the questions about language, writing and the relations between women which have preoccupied the three most influential French feminists and three important contemporary British women novelists. Treating both fiction and theory as texts, she traces the connections between the theorists - Hélène Cixious, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva - and the novelists - Doris Lessing, Angela C ' Postmodernism' And ' Feminism' Have Become Familiar Terms Since The 1960s, Developing Alongside One Another And Clearly Sharing Many Strong Points Of Contact. Why Then Have The Critical Debates Arising Out Of These Movements Had So Little To Say About Each Other? Patricia Waugh Addresses The Relationship Between Feminist And Postmodernist Writing And Theory Through The Insights Of Psychoanalysis And In The Context Of The Development Of Modern Fiction In Britain And America. She Attempts To Uncover The Reasons Why Women Writers Have ... Before 1840 there was little prestige attached to the writing of novels, and most English novelists were women. By the turn of the 20th century, 'men of letters' acclaimed novels as a form of great literature, and most successful novelists were men. Here, Gaye Tuchman examines how men redefined this form of literary expression Reissuing seminal works originally published between 1979 and 1994, Routledge Library Editions: Women, Feminism and Literature covers all aspects of women's literature, gender and feminism through literary criticism and the work of women literary theorists.