Elaine Showalter Criticism
Elaine Showalter, born in 1941 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a prominent American feminist critic, nonfiction writer, essayist, and editor. Known for her pioneering work in feminist literary criticism, Showalter introduced the concept of "gynocriticism" in her seminal book A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing, fundamentally altering the study of women's literature by focusing on the unique history, themes, and structures of literature produced by women. This framework challenged male-dominated critical perspectives and sought to appreciate the distinct experiences of female writers.
Showalter's contributions extend to cultural history, particularly with works like The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 and Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture, where she explored the intersections of gender and mental health, arguing that women have historically been marginalized and pathologized within psychiatric practices. Her critical writings often explore the social and psychological constraints faced by women, positioning her as a key figure in feminist scholarship.
Her work, while widely praised for its insightful analysis and extensive knowledge, has also faced criticism. Some reviewers, like Tom Paulin and Kathryn Hughes, have taken issue with what they view as her overly negative assessments or lack of analytical coherence in certain contexts. Others, such as Virginia T. Bemis, have critiqued her selective use of data and Eurocentric views.
Despite these criticisms, Showalter's work remains influential, particularly in academic settings where her books, such as A Literature of Their Own and The Female Malady, continue to be integral to feminist literary studies. Her ability to synthesize vast amounts of material into accessible and provocative narratives has cemented her legacy as a critical force in understanding women's roles in literature and society.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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Review of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
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In the following excerpt, Landy praises Showalter's broad historical analysis of female authors in A Literature of Their Own, but criticizes her tendency to offer unsympathetic, overly negative judgments of individual writers.
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A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
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In the following review, Cahill praises the range and the scope of material in A Literature of Their Own, noting that the work “changes the content and perspective of literary history as it is currently taught in our colleges and universities.”
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Review of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
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In the following excerpt, Krouse compliments Showalter's examination of “the female literary tradition” in A Literature of Their Own, but finds fault with Showalter's treatment of twentieth-century writers, including Virginia Woolf.
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Fugitive Spirits
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In the following excerpt, Paulin offers a negative assessment of A Literature of Their Own, arguing that the work makes a “snobbish mockery of Women's Liberation.”
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A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
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In the following review, Colby praises the range of material covered in A Literature of Their Own, but criticizes Showalter's assertions about Victorian feminism and her analysis of Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.
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The Work of Womankind
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In the following review of The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory, Belsey examines the differences between American and British feminist criticism and asserts that more attention should be paid to the social construction of women's reality rather than to promoting a gender-inclusive “populist” canon.
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Crazy Ladies?
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In the following review, Spacks commends Showalter's extensive knowledge and detailed accounts of psychiatric abuses in The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980, but finds shortcomings in Showalter's myopic thesis and oversimplified interpretations.
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The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980
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In the following review, Scheper-Hughes praises the “original and exciting” subject material in The Female Malady, despite citing flaws in Showalter's analysis of schizophrenia.
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Review of The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory
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In the following excerpt, Kauffman offers a positive assessment of The New Feminist Criticism, but notes that the collection lacks any substantial analysis of film and French feminism.
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Review of The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980
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In the following review of The Female Malady, Tomes commends Showalter's provocative cultural analysis, but finds shortcomings in her exaggerated premise and flawed historical interpretation of women's psychiatric treatment.
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End-of-the-Century Birth Throes
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In the following review, Bair praises Showalter's amusing and informative discussions in Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle. Elaine Showalter is a distinguished feminist critic whose new book, Sexual Anarchy, is a provocative comparison of the last years of the 19th Century (the fin de siècle) with the final decade of our own. Her view is optimistic, as she chooses to view the 1990s as 'the embryonic stirrings of a new order, a future that is utopian rather than apocalyptic.' She soundly rejects the idea that our century's 'terminal decade' is in 'the death throes of a diseased society and the winding down of an exhausted culture.'
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Odd Women
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In the following review, Wheelwright lauds the “fundamental questions” raised by Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle, but notes that the work focuses too heavily on the Victorian era.
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The Way They Were Then, Too
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In the following review of Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle, Maitland finds shortcomings in Showalter's emphasis on popular male, rather than female, writers and her premature effort to draw parallels between the 1890s and the 1990s.
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A New Sexual Order
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In the following review, Young praises Showalter's central arguments in Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle, calling the work “provocative” and “eloquent.”
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Patchwork Quilt
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In the following review, Carr compliments Showalter's research and analysis in Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing, but faults Showalter's romanticized notion of female community and virtue.
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The Anatomy of Culture
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In the following excerpt, Boos lauds Showalter's “eclectic virtuosity” in Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle but finds shortcomings in her ambiguous use of the term “anarchy” and her treatment of class issues and AIDS.
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Separate Spheres and Common Threads
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In the following review, Lee offers a negative assessment of Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing.
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Review of Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle
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In the following review, Shannon offers high praise for Showalter's scholarly examination of “social, sexual, and political attitudes” in Sexual Anarchy.
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Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing
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In the following review, Baym compliments the structure and subject material of Sister's Choice, noting that the book takes 'piecing'—women's creation of patterned art from snips of available fabric—as the metaphor for American women's writing. The book is artfully pieced, inserting previously published essays between Clarendon Lectures, presenting itself not as a master narrative but as a scrap-bag assemblage.
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American Patchwork
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In the following review, Lyons argues that Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing is an inconsistent and incomplete, though entertaining, literary history of American women's writing.
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Review of Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle
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In the following excerpt, Fraiman praises Sexual Anarchy for its “gripping” examination of such works as Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Ann Ardis's New Women, New Novels.
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Missing Links
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In the following review, Stuart offers a generally positive assessment of Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle.
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Secular Variations
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In the following excerpt, Baldick praises Showalter's exploration of the fin-de-siècle in Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle.
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Review of Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing
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In the following excerpt, Hedges criticizes Sister's Choice, drawing attention to Showalter's historically inaccurate understanding of quiltmaking.
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Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing
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In the following review, Hooker commends the variety of questions that Showalter raises in Sister's Choice, but notes minor flaws in Showalter's 'untimely polemics.'
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Millennial Mumbo Jumbo
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In the following excerpt, Gitlin commends Showalter's cultural analysis of texts and fads in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture, but finds shortcomings in her selective approach and tendency toward “ultra-Freudian logic.”
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Keeping Us In Hysterics
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In the following review, Crews argues that Showalter “builds no conceptual bridge” between her topics in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture, noting that Showalter's arguments are weak and poorly supported.
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Strange Signs of the Times
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In the following review, Micale praises Showalter's examination of feminine hysteria in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture.
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Out of Control?
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In the following review of Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture, Benn commends the “impressive clarity” of Showalter's discussion, but finds flaws in her presumptuous assertions about the nature of mysterious new afflictions.
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Hysteria, His and Hers
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In the following review, Sailer contends that Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture is a “sensible but limited book” as a result of Showalter's rationalist feminist perspective.
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Tales of Hysteria
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In the following review, Edis and Bix offer a positive assessment of Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture, but note flaws in Showalter's exaggeration of medieval millennial panic, her defense of psychoanalysis, and her premature dismissal of chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome.
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Review of Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture
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In the following review of Hystories, Bemis commends Showalter's historical overview of psychoanalytic theory, but objects to her “Eurocentric” view of millennial panic and her generalized, dismissive treatment of chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome.
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Wollstonecraft to Lady Di
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In the following review, English lauds the central themes of Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage, complimenting the unlikely parallels that Showalter creates between the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Diana, Princess of Wales.
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Holding the Middle Ground
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In the following review of Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage, Hughes praises Showalter's accessible writing style, but criticizes her methodology and diluted analysis.
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Oprah Winfrey Joins Diana, Princess of Wales
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In the following review, Maitland argues that Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage suffers from a lack of thematic focus and overall “trivial” subject material.
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Unparalleled Lives
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In the following review, Wineapple offers a generally favorable assessment of Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage.
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Rule-breakers Rule
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In the following review, Lee commends Showalter's “energetic and opinionated” arguments in Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage. Lee discusses how Showalter aims to broaden the definition of feminism by highlighting the lives of women who have refused to be constrained by their gender, portraying them as risk takers and adventurers whose lives, though flawed, deserve recognition.
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Classics in the Classroom
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In the following review, Nokes criticizes Teaching Literature, arguing that Showalter fails to present 'any serious or settled argument about the nature of teaching English.'
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Review of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
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- Further Reading