Feminism in Literature | French, Marilyn - Marilyn French (Essay Date 1990)

MARILYN FRENCH (ESSAY DATE 1990)

SOURCE: French, Marilyn. “Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?” In Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective, edited by Hilde Hein and Carolyn Korsmeyer, pp. 68-76. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.

In the following essay, originally published in 1990, French discusses defining “feminist” works of art and the characteristics she feels necessary to judge a piece of literature as feminist.

Literary art that is identifiably feminist approaches reality from a feminist perspective and endorses female experience. A feminist perspective demystifies patriarchal assumptions about the nature of human beings, their relation to nature, and the relation of physical and moral qualities to each other. To endorse female experience, the artist must defy or stretch traditional literary conventions, which often means offending or alienating readers. Traditional literary conventions are rooted in...

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