Postmodern
Elaine Showalter
b. 1941
American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues
- United States
- American
- Feminist Criticism
- Literary Theory
About
Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics, a term describing the study of "women as writers".
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Portrait by The British Library (CC BY 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
Life on the Timeline
Major Works
No works have been hung in this gallery yet — the acquisitions team is at work.
Exam Dossier
Most-asked topics
- Gynocritics and the theory of a female literary tradition
- A Literature of Their Own and the Feminine/Feminist/Female phase model
- "Toward a Feminist Poetics": feminist critique vs. gynocritics
- The Female Malady: women, madness and Victorian/Edwardian culture
- Sexual Anarchy and fin-de-siècle gender anxieties
- Hystories: hysteria as a modern cultural epidemic
- Showalter's place within Anglo-American feminist criticism (vs. French feminism)
- A Jury of Her Peers and the American women's literary tradition
Previous-year themes
- Definition and scope of gynocritics as coined by Showalter
- Three phases of women's writing: Feminine, Feminist, Female
- Distinction between 'feminist critique' and 'gynocritics' in 'Toward a Feminist Poetics'
- Showalter's contribution to Anglo-American feminist criticism as distinct from French feminist theory
- Titles and publication years of major Showalter works
- Concept of women's writing as a 'subculture' within a dominant literary tradition
- Showalter's work on madness, hysteria and gender representation
Common confusions
- Confusing 'gynocritics' (study of women as writers) with 'feminist critique' (feminist reading of male-authored texts about women) — the two are Showalter's distinct categories, not synonyms.
- Confusing Showalter's Anglo-American feminist criticism with French feminist theory (Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray), which is more psychoanalytic and language-focused.
- Mixing up The Female Malady (Victorian/Edwardian madness, 1830-1980) with Hystories (modern hysteria and media culture, 1997) — both deal with hysteria/madness but in different eras.
- Confusing the order or labels of the Feminine, Feminist, Female phases from A Literature of Their Own.
- Assuming A Literature of Their Own covers American women writers — it actually covers British women novelists; A Jury of Her Peers is the American counterpart.
- Confusing Showalter with other feminist critics on the reading list (e.g., Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Spivak), who represent different theoretical strands (performativity, psychoanalysis, postcolonial feminism respectively).
Memory tricks
'Gyno' = women; gynocritics = criticism BY and ABOUT women writers (not just about women in books).
Remember the 3 F's in order: Feminine → Feminist → Female (imitation, protest, self-discovery).
'Malady' in The Female Malady = madness/Victorian England; 'Hystories' = Hysteria + Histories = modern media epidemics.
"Their Own" (Showalter) echoes Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" — both trace a female literary tradition/lineage.
A Jury of HER Peers = American women writers (peers judging peers), parallel to A Literature of Their Own for British women writers.
Sexual Anarchy = fin de siècle (end of 19th century) gender panic — 'anarchy' signals cultural disorder at a turning point.
