EWRT 1C Class 10

Agenda Literary Theory: The Extrinsic Lens Feminist Criticism Change Teams Andrew Marvell “To His Coy Mistress” Group Activity: Using Feminist Criticism

Intrinsic Theories

The intrinsically inclined literary theory isolates a work of literature from its external reality. The supporters of this classification see a text of literature as having no relationship, either intended or implied, with the external world. They assert that a work exists in its own world. The critical theorists in this category are the Formalists (The New Critics), Structuralists, and Post-structuralists or the Deconstructionists.

Categorizing Literary Theories

In his book, An Essay on Criticism (1966) Graham Hough distinguishes two categories of literary theories. The first category—the intrinsic theories—is concerned with the moral nature of literature. Theories in this category primarily emphasize the total essence of literature. The second is what he describes as the extrinsic theories, which talk about the formal nature of literature and more specifically what it is.

The Extrinsic Theories The extrinsically inspired literary theories tend to associate a

literary piece with its external world. We see a departure from the isolationist philosophy of the intrinsic critics. Extrinsic criticism generally asserts that a work of literature is both a representation of the age and a reflection of the world in which it operates. Extrinsic theories value a text of literature as a product of the external world: the creator’s vision, imagination, and understanding. In this kind of criticism, the artist is said to be inside of the literary production, creating characters to carry out his mission. Some modern literary theories in this category are Psychoanalytical, Marxist, Feminist and Post-colonialist criticism.

Feminist criticism is concerned with “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and “this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in males writing about women" (Richter 1346). This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example [...] is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" (83).

Feminist Theory and Criticism

The objectives of feminist criticism include the following:

To uncover and develop a female tradition of writing

To interpret symbolism of women’s writing so that it will be lost or ignored by the male point of view.

To rediscover old texts

To analyze women writers and their writing’s from a female perspective

To increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style.

Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some

theorists call the three waves of feminism:

First Wave Feminism Ran from late 1700s-early

1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment

Second Wave Feminism

From early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement

Third Wave Feminism From early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over

generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to “reconcile [feminism] with the concerns of the black community [and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97).

Assumptions of New Criticism

The boundaries between self and other, text and world are considered firm.

The critic is/should be a neutral observer. The literary work is regarded as a self-enclosed

universe with its own logic. It stands apart from the world but illuminates the world.

The literary work should be studied for its distinctively literary elements, and for how they operate in relation to each other in the world of the work. The work is valuable for its own sake, not for any extrinsic purpose.

http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/271/FeministCriticism.htm

Assumptions of Feminist Criticism

Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so

In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values

All of western civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world

While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine)

All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality

Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/11/

Your First Group!

Get into NEW groups of three or four. (1-2 minutes)

If you can’t find a group, please raise your hand.

Introduce yourselves, and write your names down on your point sheet.

In Groups, Discuss What is the primary

focus of feminist criticism and theory?

How do feminist critics and theorists regard the role of women in literature?

Intersections of Feminist and New Criticism

QHQs

Feminist Theory What is the primary focus of

Feminist Criticism and theory?

How do feminist critics and theorists regard the role of women in literature?

What do you see as intersections of Feminist and New Criticism

QHQ Feminist Criticism

1. How can men and women utilize feminist criticism to ultimately reconstruct oppressive patriarchal social systems today?

2. “All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by promoting women’s equality.” (Tyson, 92) Q: Is this possible?

3. Q: Why are people antifeminist?

Questions Feminist Critics Ask about Literary Text

1. What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy? How are women portrayed? How do these portrayals relate to the gender issues of the period in which the novel was written or is set? In other words, does the work reinforce or undermine patriarchal ideology? (in the first case, we might say that the text has a patriarchal agenda. In the second case, we might say that the text has a feminist agenda. Texts that seem to both reinforce and undermine patriarchal ideology might be said to be ideologically conflicted.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678

of poems in anthologies, a collection of Marvell's work did not appear until 1681, three years after his death, when his nephew compiled and found a publisher for Miscellaneous Poems. The circumstances surrounding the publication of the volume aroused some suspicion: a person named "Mary Marvell," who claimed to be Marvell's wife, wrote the preface to the book. "Mary Marvell" was, in fact, Mary Palmer—Marvell's housekeeper—who posed as Marvell's wife, apparently, in order to keep Marvell's small estate from the creditors of his business partners. Her ruse, of course, merely contributes to the mystery that surrounds the life of this great poet.

See more at http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/304

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), now considered one of the greatest poets of the seventeenth century, published very little of his scathing political satire and complex lyric verse in his lifetime. Although Marvell published a handful

“To His Coy Mistress”

Andrew MarvellHad we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast; But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart; For, Lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

In your groups, discuss Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and “‘To His Coy

Mistress’: A Feminist Reading”

Identify and discuss qualities of Feminist Criticism as it is applied in the essay about “To His Coy Mistress.”

Next, find specific examples from the essay, the poem, or the definition/description of Feminist Criticism that further support a feminist reading of the poem.

Feminist Reading: QHQs1. Q: Using Feminist Criticism, what are the some of the

ways in which the male speaker promotes the patriarchal oppression of women?

2. How does “To His Coy Mistress” reflect deep sexism through portrayal of the mistress as “…desirous and repulsive… her female body itself as a loathsome symbol of human decay” (1)?

3. Q: Why does it seem like the speaker is trying to influence this woman to make a hasty decision?

4. Q: How does Marvell’s speaker defy Petrarchan tradition and transform his wooing into threats against his subject?

1. Q: Why does Andrew Marvell stress time in his poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” and what does it provide to the poem”?

2. Q: Why does the writer interpret “worms shall try/ That long-preserved virginity,/And your quaint honor turn to dust,/ And into ashes all my lust” (27-30), as the speaker telling the mistress to lose her virginity as soon as she can?

3. Q: What social tradition feeds this author to write this poem?

4. Q: Why doesn’t this poem illicit a more uncomfortable response from the reader?

5. What does the work tell us about patriarchy?

HOMEWORKRead: Lois Tyson: Chapter 2 “Psychoanalytic Criticism” pages 11-49

Reread: Bishop’s “The Fish”

Read: Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish”: A Psychoanalytic Reading (“Course Readings” and “theory texts.” Bring copies of both texts.

Post #9: What is the purpose of psychoanalytical criticism? OR QHQ on the Tyson reading