Literary feminisms

312 Pages·2002·57.195 MB·English

by  Ruth Robbins

-
literary Feminisms
transitions
General Editor: Julian Wolfreys
Published Titles
NEW HISTORICISM AND CULTURAL MATER IA USM John Brannigan
POSTMODERN NARRATIVE THEORY Mark Currie
MARXIST LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY Moyra Haslett
LITERARY FEMINISMS Ruth Robbins
DECONSTRUCTION • DERRIDA Julian Wolfreys
Forthcoming Titles
NATIONAL IDENTITY John Brannigan
GENDER Alison Chapman
IDEOLOGY James Decker
QUEER THEORY Donald E. Hall
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Claire Jones
RACE Brian G. Niro
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Andrew Roberts
SUBJECTIVITY Ruth Robbins
TRANSGRESSIONS Julian Wolfreys
FORMALIST CRITICISM AND
READER-RESPONSE THEORY Kenneth Womak and Todd Davis
transitions
Literary
Feminisms
Ruth Robbins
St. Martin's Press
New York
LITERARY FEMINISMS
Copyright© 2000 by Ruth Robbins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without wriuen permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information, address:
St. Martin's Press, Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 2000
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
Printed in Hong Kong
ISBN 0-312-22807-4 clothbound
ISBN 0-312-22808-2 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robbins, Ruth, 1965-
Literary feminisms I Ruth Robbins.
p. cm. - (Transitions)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-312-22807-4. - ISBN 0-312-22808-2 (pbk.)
I. English literature- History and criticism-Theory, etc.
2. American literature- History and criticism-Theory, etc.
3. Feminist fiction-History and criticism- Theory, etc.
4. Feminism and literature- Great Britain. 5. Feminism and
literature-United States. 6. Women and literature- Great Britain.
7. Women and literature- United States. 8. Feminist literary
criticism. I. Title. II. Series: Transitions (St. Martin's Press)
PR I I 9.R63 I 999
820'.82-dc21 99-43176
CfP
Contents
General Editor's Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
A Note on Editions Used xii
Introduction: Gestures towards Definitions 1
Part I Histories 19
1. Liberal, Materialist and Socialist Literary Feminisms 21
• Mary Wollstonecraft: vindicating the liberal-individual
woman 26
• Analysing materialism: reading as a socialist feminist? 33
• There is always another side, always ... widening the
view 40
2. Images of Women Criticsm 50
• The ways we looked - then 57
• Looking again at looking 65
• The ways we look now? 67
3. The Woman as Writer: Forging Female Traditions 70
71
• The 'problem' of quality
• Early makers of female traditions: Patricia Mayer
Spacks and Ellen Moers 75
• Developing the female tradition: Elaine Showalter,
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar 83
• The limits of one female tradition 94
V
vi Contents
Part II (Psycho) Analyses 103
4. Psychoanalysis and/or feminism? 105
• Freud 108
• Lacan 113
5. Julia Kristeva: Rewriting the Subject 119
• Reading with mother? 133
6. 'Mirror, Mirror ... ': Luce Irigaray and Reflections of and
on the Feminine 146
• Looking again: images of femininity, lrigaray and
psychoanalysis 150
• Speech is never neuter/neutral 155
• Politics and French feminism 158
• Reading with Irigaray: three Gothic reflections 160
7. Cixous: Laughing at the Oppositions 168
• Reading with Cixous 177
Part III Differences 185
8. Differences of View and Viewing the Differences:
Challenging Female Traditions 18?
• Ain't I a woman? 187
• Ghosts, traces and sexual 'Others': lesbian feminist
theories 199
• Queering the patch: Majorie Garber, Judith Butler
and the slippage of identity 209
Part IV Readings 215
9. Reading the Boys' Own Stories: The Strange Case of
Dr Jekyll and Mr l-Iyde, The Picture ofD orian Gray and
Heart ofD arkness 217
• Reading the stereotypes 219
• Case-notes: Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde 223
• As pretty as a picture? Wilde's Dorian Gray 227