Feminist critics have long debated the extent to which gender plays a role
in the creation and interpretation of texts. Androgynist poetics, rooted in mid-
Victorian women’s writing, contends that the creative mind is sexless, but
Line from the 1970s on, many feminist critics rejected the idea of the genderless
(5) mind, finding that the imagination cannot evade conscious or unconscious
structures of gender which is part of culture-determination where separating
imagination from the self is impossible.
The Female Aesthetic, expressing a unique female consciousness in
literature, spoke of the "female vernacular, the Mother Tongue, a powerful but
(10) neglected women’s culture." Virginia Woolf discusses how a woman writer
seeks within herself "the pools, the depths, the dark places where the largest
fish slumber," inevitably colliding against her own sexuality to Confront
"something about the body, about the passions." Accessible to men and women
alike, but representing female sexual morphology, this method sought a way of
(15) writing which literally embodied the female, thereby fighting the
subordinating, linear style of classification or distinction.
It must be admitted that there are problems with the Female Aesthetic that
feminist critics themselves recognized. For instance, they avoided defining
exactly what constituted their writing style, as any definition would then
(20) categorize it and safely subsume it as a genre under the linear patriarchal
structure—its very restlessness and ambiguity defied identification as part of its
identity. Some feminists and women writers could feel excluded by the
surreality of the Female Aesthetic and its stress on the biological forms of
female experience, which also bear close resemblance to essentialism. Men may
(25) try their hand at writing woman’s bodies, but according to the feminist
critique, only. a woman whose very biology gave her an edge could read these
texts successfully—a position which, worst of all, risked marginalization of
women’s literature and theory.
Later, Gynocritics attempted to resolve some of these problems, by
(30) agreeing that women’s literature lay as the central concern for feminist
criticism but rejecting the concept of an essential female identity and style,
while simultaneously seeking to revise Freudian structures by emphasizing a
Pre-Oedipal phase wherein the daughter’s bond to her mother inscribes the key
factor in gender identity. Matriarchal values dissolve intergenerational conflicts
(35) and build upon a female tradition of literature rather than the struggle of
Oedipus and Lais at the crossroads. Lastly and most promising in its
achievement of a delicate balance are developments of an over-arching gender
theory, which considers gender, both male and female, as a social construction
built on biological differences. Gender theory proposes to explore ideological
(40) inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system, opening up the
literary theory stage and bringing in questions of masculinity into feminist
theory. Taking gender as a fundamental analytic category brings feminist
criticism from the margin to the center, though it risks depoliticizing the study
of women.

Feminist critics have long debated the extent to which gender plays a role
in the creation and interpretation of texts. Androgynist poetics, rooted in mid-
Victorian women’s writing, contends that the creative mind is sexless, but
Line from the 1970s on, many feminist critics rejected the idea of the genderless
(5) mind, finding that the imagination cannot evade conscious or unconscious
structures of gender which is part of culture-determination where separating
imagination from the self is impossible.
The Female Aesthetic, expressing a unique female consciousness in
literature, spoke of the "female vernacular, the Mother Tongue, a powerful but
(10) neglected women’s culture." Virginia Woolf discusses how a woman writer
seeks within herself "the pools, the depths, the dark places where the largest
fish slumber," inevitably colliding against her own sexuality to Confront
"something about the body, about the passions." Accessible to men and women
alike, but representing female sexual morphology, this method sought a way of
(15) writing which literally embodied the female, thereby fighting the
subordinating, linear style of classification or distinction.
It must be admitted that there are problems with the Female Aesthetic that
feminist critics themselves recognized. For instance, they avoided defining
exactly what constituted their writing style, as any definition would then
(20) categorize it and safely subsume it as a genre under the linear patriarchal
structure—its very restlessness and ambiguity defied identification as part of its
identity. Some feminists and women writers could feel excluded by the
surreality of the Female Aesthetic and its stress on the biological forms of
female experience, which also bear close resemblance to essentialism. Men may
(25) try their hand at writing woman’s bodies, but according to the feminist
critique, only. a woman whose very biology gave her an edge could read these
texts successfully—a position which, worst of all, risked marginalization of
women’s literature and theory.
Later, Gynocritics attempted to resolve some of these problems, by
(30) agreeing that women’s literature lay as the central concern for feminist
criticism but rejecting the concept of an essential female identity and style,
while simultaneously seeking to revise Freudian structures by emphasizing a
Pre-Oedipal phase wherein the daughter’s bond to her mother inscribes the key
factor in gender identity. Matriarchal values dissolve intergenerational conflicts
(35) and build upon a female tradition of literature rather than the struggle of
Oedipus and Lais at the crossroads. Lastly and most promising in its
achievement of a delicate balance are developments of an over-arching gender
theory, which considers gender, both male and female, as a social construction
built on biological differences. Gender theory proposes to explore ideological
(40) inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system, opening up the
literary theory stage and bringing in questions of masculinity into feminist
theory. Taking gender as a fundamental analytic category brings feminist
criticism from the margin to the center, though it risks depoliticizing the study
of women.

Feminist critics have long debated the extent to which gender plays a role
in the creation and interpretation of texts. Androgynist poetics, rooted in mid-
Victorian women’s writing, contends that the creative mind is sexless, but
Line from the 1970s on, many feminist critics rejected the idea of the genderless
(5) mind, finding that the imagination cannot evade conscious or unconscious
structures of gender which is part of culture-determination where separating
imagination from the self is impossible.
The Female Aesthetic, expressing a unique female consciousness in
literature, spoke of the "female vernacular, the Mother Tongue, a powerful but
(10) neglected women’s culture." Virginia Woolf discusses how a woman writer
seeks within herself "the pools, the depths, the dark places where the largest
fish slumber," inevitably colliding against her own sexuality to Confront
"something about the body, about the passions." Accessible to men and women
alike, but representing female sexual morphology, this method sought a way of
(15) writing which literally embodied the female, thereby fighting the
subordinating, linear style of classification or distinction.
It must be admitted that there are problems with the Female Aesthetic that
feminist critics themselves recognized. For instance, they avoided defining
exactly what constituted their writing style, as any definition would then
(20) categorize it and safely subsume it as a genre under the linear patriarchal
structure—its very restlessness and ambiguity defied identification as part of its
identity. Some feminists and women writers could feel excluded by the
surreality of the Female Aesthetic and its stress on the biological forms of
female experience, which also bear close resemblance to essentialism. Men may
(25) try their hand at writing woman’s bodies, but according to the feminist
critique, only. a woman whose very biology gave her an edge could read these
texts successfully—a position which, worst of all, risked marginalization of
women’s literature and theory.
Later, Gynocritics attempted to resolve some of these problems, by
(30) agreeing that women’s literature lay as the central concern for feminist
criticism but rejecting the concept of an essential female identity and style,
while simultaneously seeking to revise Freudian structures by emphasizing a
Pre-Oedipal phase wherein the daughter’s bond to her mother inscribes the key
factor in gender identity. Matriarchal values dissolve intergenerational conflicts
(35) and build upon a female tradition of literature rather than the struggle of
Oedipus and Lais at the crossroads. Lastly and most promising in its
achievement of a delicate balance are developments of an over-arching gender
theory, which considers gender, both male and female, as a social construction
built on biological differences. Gender theory proposes to explore ideological
(40) inscription and the literary effects of the sex/gender system, opening up the
literary theory stage and bringing in questions of masculinity into feminist
theory. Taking gender as a fundamental analytic category brings feminist
criticism from the margin to the center, though it risks depoliticizing the study
of women.