ENGL 307: Women in Literature (Rev. C5 and C6) Report a Broken Link
English 307 critically examines the tradition in women’s writing, deconstructs the pervasive images of women in literature, and analyzes the way in which women use language to define their experiences. This course includes a variety of works by Canadian, British, American, European, and African writers including three novels (Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Ravensong); a play by Caryl Churchill; poetry by Adrienne Rich, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Bronwen Wallace; and essays by Adrienne Rich and Virginia Woolf.
Required Readings—Unit 1
| Wallace, Bronwen. "A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf." |
Required Readings—Unit 3
| Sexton, Anne. "Consorting with Angels." |
Required Readings—Unit 4
|
Marlatt, Daphne. "(Dis)spelling."
Click on the poem title in the list to read the text. |
Required Readings—Unit 5
| Wallace, Bronwen. "The Woman in this Poem." |
| Wallace, Bronwen. "One More Last Poem for the Dead." |
Required Readings—Unit 6
| Gordimer, Nadine. "City Lovers." |
| LaRocque, Emma. "Sweeping." |
Supplementary Readings—General Resources
|
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is an assortment of fifty-two published works by nineteenth-century black women writers. This collection provides access to books and pamphlets published by black women prior to 1920, thus giving readers a look at their perspectives and creative abilities. |
|
Macro, Katherine, ed. WILLA—Women in Literacy and Life Assembly. Virginia Tech.
This online journal contains essays related to the topic of women in literature. |
|
Novak, Chelsea, ed. Canadian Women in the Literary Arts.
CWILA supports the inclusion of female perspectives in Canadian literature. This website includes links to interviews, essays, blogs, and recommended reading lists. |
|
Ockerbloom, Mary Mark, ed. A Celebration of Women Writers. University of Pennsylvania.
A Celebration of Women Writers recognizes the contributions of women writers throughout history. Its goal is to promote awareness of the breadth and variety of women's writing and provide easy access to available online information. The website provides a comprehensive listing of links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers and complete published books written by women. |
|
The Orlando Project is a resource for those interested in women’s literature and writing. The database includes information on the lives and careers of over 1,305 writers, as well as contextual material in areas such as law, medicine, and education. |
|
The Victorian Women Writers Project focuses on less-well-known British women writers of the nineteenth century. Many genres are represented, including poetry, novels, and children’s books. |
|
The Women’s Studies Database provides information for those interested in women’s issues. The reading room provides access to classic texts, academic papers, and historical information. |
Supplementary Readings—Link Pages
|
Tonella, Karla, ed. Women’s Studies Resources: Literature. University of Iowa.
Provides excellent links to both general sites and author-specific sites. |
|
Offers many links to sites with information on women authors. |
Supplementary Readings—Sites by Author
|
|
|
Atwood, Margaret. Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
A preview of Atwood’s book on writing. Includes "Introduction: Into the Labyrinth” and Chapter 5: “Communion: Nobody to Nobody” (on the relationship between writer, reader, and book). |
|
The MAS strives to promote recognition of Margaret Atwood's works and cultural contributions. The website includes links to other useful sites focused on Margaret Atwood. |
|
This site contains information about Atwood’s life, writing, and books. |
|
|
|
Dalley, Lana L. “‘The Least ‘Angelical’ Poem in the Language’: Political Economy, Gender, and the Heritage of Aurora Leigh.” Victorian Poetry 44.4 (Winter 2006): 525–543.
An essay tracing the ways in which liberal economic theory comes to bear on the poetic vision of Aurora Leigh and the manner in which Victorian feminist essayists draw upon the figure of Aurora Leigh to formulate their arguments for women’s increased economic autonomy. |
|
Dieleman, Karen. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Religious Poetics: Congregationalist Models of Hymnist and Preacher.” Victorian Poetry 45.2 (Summer 2007): 135–157.
Examines Aurora Leigh as a “sage discourse” that ponders theological questions from a female point of view within a very masculinist Victorian religious tradition. |
|
Friedman, Susan Stanford. “Gender and Genre Anxiety: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and H. D. as Epic Poets.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 5.2 (Autumn 1986): 203–228.
A scholarly essay examining how Barrett Browning creates and manages gender and genre anxiety by working within the traditionally masculine form of epic poetry. |
|
Logan, Deborah. “The Economics of Sexuality: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Victorian ‘Bad Conscience.’” Women’s Studies 24.4 (March 1995): 293–306.
Logan uses Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh as an example opposing the popular perception that the Victorian era was a period of intense sexual repression. |
|
Rosenblum, Dolores. “Face to Face: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 'Aurora Leigh' and Nineteenth-Century Poetry.” Victorian Studies 26.3 (Spring 1983): 321–338.
A scholarly essay examining the literary context of Aurora Leigh and the significance of the female face in respect to the mother, mirrors, and subjectivity. |
|
Zonana, Joyce. “The Embodied Muse: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Feminist Poetics.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 8.2 (Autumn 1989): 240–262.
A scholarly essay examining the muse figure in Aurora Leigh. |
|
|
|
Franklin, J. Jeffrey. “The Merging of Spiritualities: Jane Eyre as Missionary of Love.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 49.4 (1995): 456–482.
Essay on spirituality (Christianity and the use of spirits) in Jane Eyre. |
|
Gribble, Jennifer. “Jane Eyre's Imagination.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 23.3 (1968): 279–293.
Scholarly essay exploring imagination in Jane Eyre and Brontë’s authorial relationship to her protagonist. |
|
Kaplan, Carla. “Girl Talk: Jane Eyre and the Romance of Women's Narration.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 30.1 (1996): 5–31.
Examination of Jane Eyre’s role in the feminist canon. |
|
Landow, George P., ed. The Victorian Web: Charlotte Brontë. Brown University.
Extensive compilation of short essays on Charlotte Brontë and her writing. |
|
London, Bette. “The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production of the Text.” ELH 58.1 (1991): 195–213.
A study of Brontë’s relationship to the category of women’s writing. |
|
Marcus, Sharon. “The Profession of the Author: Abstraction, Advertising, and Jane Eyre.” PMLA 110.2 (1995): 206–219.
Scholarly essay examining the relationship between female subjectivity and writing in Jane Eyre through the concept of abstraction. |
|
Mardorossian, Carine M. “Unsuspecting Storyteller and Suspect Listener: A Postcolonial Reading of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.” ARIEL 37.2–3 (2006): 1–32.
An overview and analysis of Jane Eyre and postcolonial literary theory. |
|
Pell, Nancy. “Resistance, Rebellion, and Marriage: The Economics of Jane Eyre.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 31.4 (1977): 397–420.
Exploration of the ways in which Charlotte Bronte's romantic individualism and rebellion of feeling are controlled and structured by an underlying social and economic critique of bourgeois patriarchal authority in Jane Eyre. |
|
Rapaport, Herman. “Jane Eyre and the Mot Tabou.” MLN 94.5 (1979): 1093–1104.
An analysis of the disembodied voices in Jane Eyre as part of a “poetics of hauntedness.” |
|
Roy, Parama. “Unaccommodated Woman and the Poetics of Property in Jane Eyre.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 29.4 (1989): 713–727.
Scholarly essay exploring the ways in which a deeply conservative subtext runs throughout Brontë’s predominantly radical text, Jane Eyre. |
|
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Eds. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills. New York: Routledge, 2003. 306–323.
Spivak’s watershed essay often referred to by scholars of Jane Eyre. |
|
Sternlieb, Lisa. “Jane Eyre: 'Hazarding Confidences.'” Nineteenth-Century Literature 53.4 (1999): 452–479.
Essay exploring the relationship Brontë creates with her readers as confidantes. |
|
Ward, Maryanne C.. “The Gospel According to Jane Eyre: The Suttee and the Seraglio.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 35.1 (2002): 14–24.
A careful examination of the historical context of Jane Eyre in respect to slavery in postemancipation Britain and the rhetoric of abolition throughout Brontë’s novel. |
|
Wyatt, Jean. “A Patriarch of One's Own: Jane Eyre and Romantic Love.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 4.2 (1985): 199–216.
Exploration of the interaction between novels and female fantasy patterns. Focuses on women’s identification with Jane Eyre despite their reading it in differing times and from disparate nationalities. |
|
|
|
Bazin, Victoria. “‘[Not] Talking ‘bout My Generation’: Historicizing Feminisms in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 39.2 (Fall 2006): 115–135.
Essay contextualizing and analyzing Top Girls in the history of contemporary feminism. |
|
Caryl Churchill. British Council.
Biographical info, bibliographical info, and critical perspectives on Caryl Churchill. |
|
Diamond, Elin. “(In)Visible Bodies in Churchill's Theatre.” Theatre Journal 40.2 (1988): 188–204.
Scholarly analysis of the way in which bodies figure in the works of Caryl Churchill. |
|
|
|
Chapman, Alison. “Mary Elizabeth Coleridge and the Flight to Lyric.” The Yearbook of English Studies 37.1 (2007): 145–160.
Critical essay arguing that Coleridge's poetic waywardness or homelessness is a product of her intimate female network, in which her private lyrics capture the process of unravelling male aestheticism to forge a tentative space for secret and illicit female desire. |
|
Landow, George P., ed. The Victorian Web: Mary Coleridge. Brown University.
Biography, chronology, and context on Mary Coleridge’s life and writing. |
|
A short biography of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge and a selection of her works. |
|
|
|
Campbell, Donna M., ed. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886). Washington State University.
Site providing extensive links to numerous resources on Emily Dickinson. |
|
Emily Dickinson Museum: The Homestead and the Evergreens. Trustees of Amherst College.
Website describing the Emily Dickinson Museum, which occupies two houses and three acres of property owned by the Dickinson family in Amherst, Massachusetts. |
|
Erkkila, Betsy. “Emily Dickinson and Class.” American Literary History 4.1 (1992): 1–27.
Essay on current Dickinson scholarship with emphasis on class. |
|
Greene, Elsa. “Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess.” College English 34.1 (1972): 63–70.
Explores the meaning and context of the role “poetess” in the mid-nineteenth century. |
|
Lester, Toby. "Emily Dickinson (Un)discovered." The Atlantic Monthly (1996).
Article discussing Dickinson's correspondence with literary critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson. |
|
McFadden, Therese Dolores. “Emily Dickinson: A Poet for the Now Generation.” The English Journal 60.4 (1971): 462–464.
Article on teaching Dickinson in a way that is relevant to contemporary students. |
|
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Soul at the White Heat: The Romance of Emily Dickinson's Poetry.” Critical Inquiry 13.4 (1987): 806–824.
Critical essay on Dickinson’s poetry. |
|
Walker, Nancy. “Emily Dickinson and the Self: Humor as Identity.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2.1 (1983): 57–68.
Essay exploring how Dickinson defines "self" through a series of negations and uses humor to distance herself from that which she is not, thus establishing an individual if elusive identity as both poet and woman. |
|
|
|
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman: 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" American Literature Research and Analysis Web Site. Florida Gulf Coast University.
A website produced by students at Florida Gulf Coast University dedicated to articles and resources on Gilman and "The Yellow Wallpaper." |
|
Crowder, Sarah L. "Feminist Gothic in 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Lonestar College.
A model student essay discussing how "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a classic in feminist literature. |
|
Dock, Julie Bates et al. "'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship." PMLA 111.1 (1996): 52–65.
A critical analysis of contemporary scholarship and production of "The Yellow Wallpaper." |
|
Ford, Karen. "'The Yellow Wallpaper' and Women's Discourse." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 4.2 (1985): 309–314.
An analysis of critical readings of "The Yellow Wallpaper." |
|
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" The Forerunner (Oct 1913).
Article by the author explaining why she wrote the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." |
|
Lanser, Susan S. "Feminist Criticism, 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' and the Politics of Color in America." Feminist Studies 15.3 (1989): 415–441.
A critical analysis of contemporary scholarship of “The Yellow Wallpaper” with emphasis on race. |
|
|
|
Garner, Dwight. "The Salon Interview—Nadine Gordimer." Salon (Mar 1998).
Interview by Salon magazine subtitled “The conscience of South Africa talks about her country’s new racial order." |
|
Nadine Gordimer. British Council.
Biographical info, bibliographical info, and critical perspectives on Nadine Gordimer. |
|
"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1991." Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014.
Biographical and historical context on Nadine Gordimer and her writing. |
|
Trump, Martin. “The Short Fiction of Nadine Gordimer.” Research in African Literatures 17.3 (1986): 341–369.
Essay on the particular impact of Gordimer’s short fiction as opposed to the novels for which she is better known. |
|
|
|
Emma LaRocque. Indspire.
Profile of LaRocque on Indspire, an Indigenous-led charity involved in the education of Indigenous people in Canada. |
|
Tombs, Deirdre. "Emma LaRocque: Poverty, Racism Obstacles Overcome." Windspeaker.
A profile of LaRocque by Windspeaker, part of the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society. |
|
|
|
"Margaret's Biography." The Margaret Laurence Home.
Biographical information on Laurence. |
|
Thomas, Clara. "Margaret Laurence." The Canadian Encyclopedia (Sep 2008).
Biographical and bibliographical information on Laurence and her writing. |
|
|
|
Beardsley, Doug, and Rosemary Sullivan. "An Interview with Dorothy Livesay." Canadian Poetry 3 (1978).
Interview by Western University’s online journal, Canadian Poetry. |
|
Sanchez-Pardo, Esther. “Canonization or Exclusion?: Dorothy Livesay's Wayward Modernism from the 1940s.” Atlantis 23.2 (December 2000): 167–185.
Explores Dorothy Livesay's contributions to Canadian modernist poetry during the 1940s. Focuses on Livesay's lyric poetry and aims to productively link female subjectivity to a belated Canadian modernism that included female poets writing about themselves, their own gender, and their belonging to Canada. |
|
Zenari, Vivian. English-Canadian Writers: Dorothy Livesay. Athabasca University.
Biographical and bibliographical information on Livesay and her writing by AU’s Centre for Language and Literature. |
|
|
|
Bowerbank, Sylvia, and Dolores Nawagesic Wawia. “Literature and Criticism by Native and Métis Women in Canada.” Feminist Studies 20.3 (1994): 565–581.
A broad and informative review of critical work by Aboriginal and Métis authors in the nineties including Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures; The Transformation of a Conference by Sky Lee, Lee Maracle, Daphne Marlatt, and Betsy Warland. Provides some background on Maracle as a writer. |
|
Leggatt, Judith. “Raven's Plague: Pollution and Disease in Lee Maracle's Ravensong.” Mosaic 33.4 (December 2000): 163–178.
Scholarly essay examining the paradoxical construction of dirt and disease in Lee Maracle's Ravensong. |
|
"Native American Authors: Lee Maracle." Internet Public Library. Drexel University.
Biographical and bibliographic information on Maracle. |
|
|
|
Knutson, Susan L. Narrative in the Feminine: Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2000.
Preview of the book including the chapter “Writing Women: Some Introductory Questions.” |
|
Wurfel, Marlene. English-Canadian Writers: Daphne Marlatt. Athabasca University.
Biographical and bibliographical information on Marlatt and her writing by AU’s Centre for Language and Literature. |
|
|
|
Cam, Heather. "'Daddy': Sylvia Plath's Debt to Anne Sexton." American Literature 59.3 (1987): 429–432.
Short essay on how Sexton’s poetry inspired Plath’s, especially the well-known poem “Daddy.” |
|
Lant, Kathleen Margaret. “The Big Strip Tease: Female Bodies and Male Power in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath.” Contemporary Literature 34.4 (1993): 620–669.
Scholarly essay on gender in Plath’s poetry. |
|
|
|
Abel, Elizabeth. “Women and Schizophrenia: The Fiction of Jean Rhys.” Contemporary Literature 20.2 (1979): 155–177.
An examination of the recurring schizophrenic behaviours that Rhys’s fictional female characters manifest. Discusses reasons feminist and mainstream scholars may neglect Rhys as an important writer. |
|
Ciolkowski, Laura E.. “Navigating the Wide Sargasso Sea: Colonial History, English Fiction, and British Empire.” Twentieth Century Literature 43.3 (1997): 339–359.
Scholarly essay exploring the connections between the politics of imperialism and gender especially in terms of Englishness and womanhood as nineteenth-century constructions. |
|
Emery, Mary Lou. “The Politics of Form: Jean Rhys's Social Vision in Voyage in the Dark and Wide Sargasso Sea.” Twentieth Century Literature 28.4 (1982): 418–430.
An analysis of Rhys’s modernist techniques depicting fragmented perceptions and disjointed voices to portray exile and the decentered self. Explores how Rhys’s narratives dissect the ways and means to power, money, and sex. |
|
Erwin, Lee. "'Like in a Looking-Glass': History and Narrative in Wide Sargasso Sea." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 22.2 (1989): 143–158.
Academic paper providing historical context for Wide Sargasso Sea and the novel’s relationship to history. |
|
Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. "Charting the Empty Spaces of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 9.2 (1987): 23–28.
An analysis of the Sargasso Sea as a metaphor for patriarchy in Rhys’s novel. |
|
Mardorossian, Carine M. “Double (De)colonization and the Feminist Criticism of Wide Sargasso Sea.” College Literature 26.2 (Spring 1999): 79–95.
A review of the feminist criticism of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea illustrates the development of feminist literary theory and criticism since its 1966 publication. |
|
Mardorossian, Carine M. “Shutting Up the Subaltern: Silences, Stereotypes, and Double-Entendre in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea.” Callaloo 22.4 (1999): 1071–1090.
This paper explores Wide Sargasso Sea's articulation of race and gender in the context of a debate that has been waged within feminist postcolonial studies around the representation of racial otherness. |
|
Moore, Judith. “Sanity and Strength in Jean Rhys's West Indian Heroines.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 41.1/2 (1987): 21–31.
Essay focusing on the subtler themes and concepts in Rhys’s work as opposed to the blunter conflicts between such polarized entities as male and female, white and black, and England and the West Indies. |
|
Nixon, Nicola. “Wide Sargasso Sea and Jean Rhys's Interrogation of the ‘Nature Wholly Alien’ in Jane Eyre.” Essays in Literature 21.2 (Fall 1994): 267–285.
The treatment by Charlotte Brontë of female sexuality in the context of marriage in her novel Jane Eyre and that of Jean Rhys in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea are compared. |
|
Ochshorn, Kathleen. “Of Woodlice and White Cockroaches: The West Indian Girlhood of Jean Rhys.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 12.2 (1991): 25–35.
A biographical essay on Rhys. |
|
Russell, Keith A., II. "‘Now every word she said was echoed, echoed loudly in my head’: Christophine's Language and Refractive Space in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea.” Journal of Narrative Theory 37.1 (Winter 2007): 87–103.
Scholarly analysis of the use of language by Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea protagonist, Christophine. Emphasis on a major essay by Spivak, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism," from 1985. |
|
|
|
Adrienne Rich. The Academy of American Poets.
Bibliographical and biographical information on Rich. |
|
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. “The Critique of Consciousness and Myth in Levertov, Rich, and Rukeyser.” Feminist Studies 3.1/2 (1975): 199–221.
Scholarly essay exploring the shared concerns of Levertov, Rich, and Rukeyser in that each has posited the relations of self and society as a primary poetic situation and explored these relations in several ways. |
|
Farwell, Marilyn R.. “Adrienne Rich and an Organic Feminist Criticism.” College English 39.2 (1977): 191–203.
Essay making a case that Adrienne Rich has provided the only sustained attempt at a literary theory based directly on a feminist philosophy. |
|
Pettit, Rhonda. “Biography of Adrienne Rich.” Encyclopedia of American Poetry, 2001.
Biography and poems by Rich online. |
|
|
|
Landow, George P., ed. The Victorian Web: Christina Rossetti. Brown University.
Extensive compilation of short essays on Christina Rossetti and her writing. |
|
|
|
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. “The Critique of Consciousness and Myth in Levertov, Rich, and Rukeyser.” Feminist Studies 3.1/2 (1975): 199–221.
Scholarly essay exploring the shared concerns of Levertov, Rich, and Rukeyser in that each has posited the relations of self and society as a primary poetic situation and explored these relations in several ways. |
|
Thurston, Michael. "Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)." Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A biographical sketch as well as background on Rukeyser’s major works. |
|
|
|
Kendall, Charity. “Anne Sexton—Making More of One’s Own Life through the Creation of Metaphor.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 26.1–2 (March 2005): 87–97.
A psychological perspective on Sexton’s life and writing. |
|
Marx, Patricia, and Anne Sexton. “Interview with Anne Sexton.” The Hudson Review 18.4 (1965): 560–570.
Interview in which Sexton speaks personally about her poetry. |
|
Middlebrook, Diane Wood. “Housewife into Poet: The Apprenticeship of Anne Sexton.” The New England Quarterly 56.4 (1983): 483–503.
History and analysis of Sexton’s transition from housewife to major poet. |
|
|
|
Bryan, Anne. "Stevie Smith (1902 to 1971)." Strange-Attractor Website.
Biographical and bibliographical information on Smith as well as critical perspectives on her writing. Contains many resources. |
|
Laughlin, Nicholas. Review of Stevie Smith’s work. Folio Books.
A short review of Collected Poems and Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith. |
|
|
|
Fike, Matthew A. "Jean Toomer and Okot P'bitek in Alice Walker's 'In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens.'" MELUS 25.3/4 (2000): 141–160.
Critical perspectives on Walker’s references to two poets in “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” |
|
Jokinen, Anniina. Anniina’s Alice Walker Page.
Contains a biography, excerpts from Walker's works, links to essays, articles, criticism, reviews, and more. |
|
McMillan, Laurie. "Telling a Critical Story: Alice Walker's 'In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens.'" Journal of Modern Literature 28.1 (2004): 107–123.
Critical analysis of Walker’s “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” |
|
Stetz, Margaret D. “Feminist Exhibitionism: When the Women's Studies Professor Is a Curator.” NWSA Journal 17.2 (2005): 208–216.
Scholarly essay on “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” |
|
|
|
Badowska, Ewa. “The Anorexic Body of Liberal Feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 17.2 (1998): 283–303.
Scholarly analysis of how Wollstonecraft’s manifesto is pervaded with the image of an appetitive body: its hungers, its tastes, and its (uncertain) boundaries. |
|
Botting, Eileen Hunt, and Christine Carey. “Wollstonecraft's Philosophical Impact on Nineteenth-Century American Women's Rights Advocates.” American Journal of Political Science 48.4 (2004): 707–722.
Argues the fundamental importance of Wollstonecraft's work to later feminists. |
|
Ferguson, Susan. “The Radical Ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 32.3 (1999): 427–450.
An overview and critique of contemporary scholarly responses to Wollstonecraft. |
|
Hunt, Eileen M. “The Family as Cave, Platoon and Prison: The Three Stages of Wollstonecraft's Philosophy of the Family”. The Review of Politics 64.1 (2002): 81–119.
Historical context and analysis of Wollstonecraft’s conceptions of the family. |
|
Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Mary Wollstonecraft Legacy." About.com.
Overview of the life and work of early English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. |
|
MacKenzie, Catriona. “Reason and Sensibility: The Ideal of Women's Self-Governance in the Writings of Mary Wollstonecraft.” Hypatia 8.4 (1993): 35–55.
Essay challenging standard feminist interpretations of Wollstonecraft. |
|
Smith, Amy Elizabeth. “Roles for Readers in Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 32.3 (1992): 555–570.
Scholarly essay on Wollstonecraft’s intended audience for A Vindication of the Rights of Women. |
|
|
|
Marcus, Jane. “Quentin's Bogey.” Critical Inquiry 11.3 (1985): 486–497.
Scholarly essay on patriarchal and religious imagery in A Room of One’s Own. |
|
Moran, Patricia. "'The Flaw in the Centre': Writing as Hymenal Rupture in Virginia Woolf's Work." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 17.1 (1998): 101–121.
An overview and analysis of female sexuality in Woolf’s writing. |
|
Restuccia, Frances L. "'Untying the Mother Tongue': Female Difference in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 4.2 (1985): 253–264.
Essay on Woolf’s depiction of femaleness in A Room of One’s Own and critical responses to it. |
|
Rosenberg, Beth Carole. “Virginia Woolf's Postmodern Literary History.” MLN 115.5 (2000): 1112–1130.
An overview and analysis of literary history pertinent to and resulting from Woolf’s work. |
|
Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. “Sexual Identity and A Room of One's Own: 'Secret Economies' in Virginia Woolf's Feminist Discourse.” Signs 14.3 (1989): 634–650.
Essay investigating a “secret economy” central to Woolf's life and work, as well as to feminist theory: the economy of sexual identity. |
Supplementary Readings—Women and Literature
|
Eagleton, Mary. “Who's Who and Where's Where: Constructing Feminist Literary Studies.” Feminist Review 53 (1996): 1–23.
Article concerned with the construction of feminist literary studies in the last twenty years. Considers arguments from Third World feminism and postmodernist feminism to conclude that white, academic feminists should confront the privilege of their own inclusion as a necessary spur to political action. |
|
Jones, Ann Rosalind. “Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of L'Ecriture Feminine.” Feminist Studies 7.2 (1981): 247–263.
Overview and scholarly critique of the French feminist movement and the school of thought referred to as l’ecriture feminine. |
|
Lee, Elizabeth. "Women in Literature—A Literary Overview." The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. Brown University.
Overview of Elaine Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own. |
|
Robinson, Lillian S. “Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2.1 (1983): 83–98.
Scholarly essay on the literary canon with emphasis on feminist concerns. |
|
Showalter, Elaine. “Women and the Literary Curriculum.” College English 32.8 (1971): 855–862.
Essay examining the college and university literary curriculum from the viewpoint of women students, who comprise the majority of its consumers. |
|
Zagarell, Sandra A. “Conceptualizing Women's Literary History: Reflections on the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 5.2 (1986): 273–287.
Review of Gilbert and Gubar’s Norton Anthology of Literature by Women and its ramifications for the study of women in literature. |
Supplementary Readings—Canadian and Aboriginal Literature
|
Mayer, Lorraine F. “A Return to Reciprocity.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 22.3 (June 2007): 22–42.
A personal and critical essay by a Métis woman on her relationship with feminism and the broader influence of feminism among Aboriginal women. |
|
New, L. H. "Literature in English." The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Information on the history of Canadian Literature. |
Supplementary Readings—Caribbean Literature
|
"Caribbean Literature: An Overview." Postcolonialweb.org.
Information on the history of Caribbean literature with emphasis on postcolonial theory. |
Supplementary Readings—Contemporary British Theatre
|
Kruger, Loren. “The Dis-play's the Thing: Gender and Public Sphere in Contemporary British Theater.” Theatre Journal 42.1 (1990): 27–47.
Essay on the emergence of feminist theatre in Great Britain, including the contributions of Caryl Churchill. |