Ady
ENG 220 Approaches to reading and Interpretation
Grew out of women's movement following WW II, this approach
analyzes the representation of women in literature. Though the
projects of individual critics differ, there is general agreement
that interpretation of literature involves critique of
patriarchy. Patriarchy = ideology that privileges
masculine ways of thinking/points of view and marginalizes women
politically, economically and psychologically.
For some (French influence), project of interpretation is to expose
patriarchal nature of language itself. This involves usage
that denigrates or ignores women. It also includes the deeper view
that a masculine style of language has suppressed a feminine one.
Women need to assert a feminine language. What would this be like?
Some have argued that it would be more fluid, less straightforward
and logical, more perceptual, open to ongoing semiosis (For what this
may look like, read Virginia Woolf's short story "The Mark on the
Wall.")
Some authors (American) explore texts in detail, demonstrating
patriarchical patterns, or the complex response of women writers to
their own authorial status.
Some explore challenges to a literary canon that is so
dominated by men. This means the insertion of ignored female writers
(e.g. Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman) into the canon. It also
entails the study of a literary tradition of women writers.
In the sense that this criticism often explores less what the text
overtly says but what it hides (e.g. unquestioning attitude toward
ideologically entrenched ideas about women) this criticism counts as
an example of a "hermeneutics of suspicion."
Major authors, critics: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman (1792), John Stuart Mill, The Subjection
of Women (1869); Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth
Century (1845); Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
(1929); Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949); Mary
Ellman, Thinking about Women (1968); Kate Millett, Sexual
Politics (1969); Judith Fetterley, The Resisting Reader
(1978); Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own (1977);
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic
(1979) Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous
TERMS:
IDEOLOGY: dominant values, beliefs, ways of thinking through
which a culture understands reality. Similar to the phrase "cultural
mythology," it usually represents in tacit fashion the prevailing
views of a particular class. Examples of ideology relevant to
American culture: gender roles, value of capitalism, constitutional
rights protecting individual liberties, Protestant work ethic, Rocky
Balboa . . .
LITERARY CANON: the group of texts deemed to be major works of
literary tradition
GYNOCRITICISM: concerns itself with works by women
HERMENEUTICS OF TRUST: Interpretive approaches that lend credence
to authorial or rhetorical intentionality, that concern themselves
with laying bare the verbal sense in all of its dynamics. Examples:
formalism, reader-response
HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION: involves a resistance to
author's intentions or textual design to unearth hidden ideologies or
aporia (anomalies). Less what the text says; more what the text
hides. Examples: Deconstruction, Feminist Literary Criticism, Marxist
literary criticism
IN THE CROSSFIRE:
FEMINIST LITERARY INTERPRETATION VS FORMALISM
FEMINIST LITERARY INTERPRETATION VS HISTORICISM