Feminist literary criticism
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature; this school of thought seeks to analyze and describe the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of male domination by exploring the economic, social and psychological forces embedded within literature. This way of thinking and criticizing works can be said to have changed the way literary texts are viewed and studied, as well as changing and expanding the canon of what is taught, it is used a lot in Greek myths. Traditionally, feminist literary criticism has sought to examine old texts within literary canon through a new lens. Specific goals of feminist criticism include both the development and discovery female tradition of writing, rediscovering of old texts, while interpreting symbolism of women's writing so that it will not be lost or ignored by the male point of view and resisting sexism inherent in the majority of mainstream literature.
These goals, along with the intent to analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective, increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style were developed by Lisa Tuttle in the 1980s, have since been adopted by a majority of feminist critics. The history of feminist literary criticism is extensive, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge theoretical work in women's studies and gender studies by "third-wave" authors. Before the 1970s—in the first and second waves of feminism—feminist literary criticism was concerned with women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature. In addition, feminist literary criticism is concerned with the exclusion of women from the literary canon, with theorists such as Lois Tyson suggesting that this is because the views of women authors are not considered to be universal ones. Additionally, feminist criticism has been associated with the birth and growth of queer studies.
Modern feminist literary theory seeks to understand both the literary portrayals and representation of both women and people in the queer community, expanding the role of a variety of identities and analysis within feminist literary criticism. Feminist scholarship has developed a variety of ways to unpack literature in order to understand its essence through a feminist lens. Scholars under the camp known as Feminine Critique sought to divorce literary analysis away from abstract diction-based arguments and instead tailored their criticism to more "grounded" pieces of literature and recognize the perceived implicit misogyny of the structure of the story itself. Others schools of thought such as gynocriticism—which is considered a'female' perspective on women's writings—uses a historicist approach to literature by exposing exemplary female scholarship in literature and the ways in which their relation to gender structure relayed in their portrayal of both fiction and reality in their texts.
Gynocriticism was introduced during the time of second wave feminism. Elaine Showalter suggests that feminist critique is an "ideological, righteous and admonitory search for the sins and errors of the past," and says gynocriticism enlists "the grace of imagination in a disinterested search for the essential difference of women's writing."More contemporary scholars attempt to understand the intersecting points of femininity and complicate our common assumptions about gender politics by accessing different categories of identity The ultimate goal of any of these tools is to uncover and expose patriarchal underlying tensions within novels and interrogate the ways in which our basic literary assumptions about such novels are contingent on female subordination. In this way, the accessibility of literature broadens to a far more inclusive and holistic population. Moreover, works that received little or no attention, given the historical constraints around female authorship in some cultures, are able to be heard in their original form and unabridged.
This makes a broader collection of literature for all readers insofar as all great works of literature are given exposure without bias towards a gender influenced system. Women have begun to employ anti-patriarchal themes to protest the historical censorship of literature written by women; the rise of decadent feminist literature in the 1990s was meant to directly challenge the sexual politics of the patriarchy. By employing a wide range of female sexual exploration and lesbian and queer identities by those like Rita Felski and Judith Bennet, women were able attract more attention about feminist topics in literature. Since the development of more complex conceptions of gender and subjectivity and third-wave feminism, feminist literary criticism has taken a variety of new routes, namely in the tradition of the Frankfurt School's critical theory, which analyzes how the dominant ideology of a subject influences societal understanding, it has considered gender in the terms of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, as part of the deconstruction of existing relations of power, as a concrete political investment.
The more traditionally central feminist concern with the representation and politics of women's lives has continued to play an active role in criticism. More modern feminist criticism deals with those issues related to the perceived intentional and unintentional patriarchal programming within key aspects of society including education and the work force; when looking at literature, modern feminist literary critics seek ask how feminist, liter
Character of the Happy Warrior
"Character of the Happy Warrior" is a poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Composed in 1806, after the death of Lord Nelson, hero of the Napoleonic Wars, first published in 1807, the poem purports to describe the ideal "man in arms," and has, through ages since, been the source of much metaphor in political and military life. Wordsworth begins by asking us "Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he What every man in arms should wish to be?" He proceeds to answer his own query: The Happy Warrior is a generous spirit, amidst, or, in spite of, the tasks of real life, hath done what pleased his innocent, "childish thought." His noble ideas and deeds are "an inward light" that, despite their inwardness, make the path before the warrior "always bright." The Happy Warrior is a diligent student, eager to amass. All fearsome challenges he transmutes, subduing what negative qualities they may have, learning from what good they have to offer; the warrior is "skilful in self-knowledge" and understands that the true purpose of "suffering and distress" is to grow in compassion and "tenderness."
His law and dearest friend is Reason. If he achieves high station, he does so honestly; because he is single-mindedly faithful, he does not seek his own advancement. He has a "peculiar grace" that shows itself in any action that he takes, no matter how great or humble. Our Warrior is "happy as a Lover" in the face of the greatest strife. Though he deals well with all things perilous & turbulent, he aspires to "homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes" He is not content with any one good or great deed, but always seeks to top himself; the poet concludes with a statement echoing his initial question: "This is the happy Warrior. The poem is in iambic pentameter, is composed in rhyming couplets: thus is the poem written in heroic couplets, fitting for a composition extolling those virtues most apparent in "men in arms," and found in epic works such as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; as in much other heroic verse, the poet here seems to object nothing to the occasional poetic triplet. Wordsworth modelled his Happy Warrior on Lord Nelson, though his fleet was victorious, had been killed at the Battle of Trafalgar by a French sniper.
Nelson had been famous for his loving, inspirational leadership, had, in previous battles, lost an arm & the sight in one eye, yet persisted in his pursuit of greatness. In nominating Alfred E. Smith for the presidency at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Franklin D. Roosevelt notably referred to Smith as "the happy warrior," at the behest of Joseph M. Proskauer, Smith's close friend, campaign advisor, speech writer. Hubert Humphrey was frequently referred to as "the Happy Warrior."Barack Obama, after winning a second term as President, referred to Vice-President Joe Biden as "America's Happy Warrior" in his acceptance speech. The words "happy warrior", an apparent reference to Wordsworth's poem, were famously found written in the personal notes which Labour Party leader Ed Miliband accidentally left behind after one of the leaders' debates prior to the 2015 general election. Character of the Happy Warrior on Bartleby
The White Doe of Rylstone
The White Doe of Rylstone. It is set during the Rising of the North in 1569, combines historical and legendary subject-matter, it has attracted praise from some critics, but has never been one of Wordsworth's more popular poems. The White Doe of Rylstone opens outside Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, where the poet sees the white doe enter the churchyard and lie down by one particular grave, where it is recognized as a regular visitor by the parishioners; the poem moves back in time to Emily Norton at Rylstone Hall. Emily’s brother Richard tries unsuccessfully to dissuade their father from this course resolves to follow them unarmed, in the hope that he can still dissuade his father. Norton's band of soldiers, including other brothers of Emily, joins forces with those of the Earl of Northumberland and other Catholic rebels, they march to Wetherby. On the approach of Queen Elizabeth's army the rebels fall back in retreat; the poem returns to Rylstone Hall, where Emily encounters the white doe by moonlight.
She sends an old friend of her father to get news of his fate. Richard accomplishes this task, but he is surprised by a party of the royal army and is killed; when Rylstone Hall suffers devastation Emily flees, only returns years there to find the same white doe, which henceforth becomes her faithful friend, going wherever she goes. Emily at last is buried at Bolton Abbey; the mystery of why the white doe visits the grave is thus explained. It has been argued that Wordsworth was induced to write a historical poem by observing the success of Walter Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Wordsworth found in Thomas Whitaker's The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven the legend of a white doe which, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone to Bolton Abbey; the historical parts of the story of The White Doe are taken from a ballad called "The Rising in the North", which Wordsworth had read in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, from Nicolson and Burn's The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland.
The influence of other ballads from Percy's Reliques has been traced in the poem, the dedicatory poem to The White Doe is filled with references to Spenser's The Faerie Queene. The metre of the poem is similar to that of Coleridge's Christabel, Wordsworth acknowledged his debt to it in a preface, but Scott and Samuel Daniel have been cited as possible influences on the metre. In June 1807 Wordsworth and his sister visited Bolton Abbey; that year he read Whitaker's account of the legend of the white doe, and, in October 1807, began to write The White Doe completing it on 18 January 1808. In February 1808 Wordsworth visited London to consult Coleridge about The White Doe, to try to sell it for, Wordsworth hoped, 100 guineas. Together the two dined with the publisher Longman to discuss the poem Wordsworth returned home, leaving the manuscript with Coleridge so that he could show it to Charles Lamb and continue negotiations with Longman. Dorothy Wordsworth, acutely aware of the need for money in the Wordsworth household, wrote to Coleridge to urge on his efforts.
Three months Coleridge was surprised and annoyed to discover that Wordsworth had written to Longman to the effect that he had decided not to publish the poem. When Coleridge protested to Wordsworth his objections were swept aside, provoking a serious quarrel between the two friends. Wordsworth's reason for withdrawing The White Doe may have been his dismay at the appalling reviews of his Poems, in Two Volumes. By 1815 however Wordsworth had come up with a revised and expanded text, for which he wrote a dedication to his wife Mary in Spenserian metre, completing it on 20 April, it was published in quarto, priced on 2 June. Wordsworth himself believed The White Doe to be one of his finest poems, but the reviewers were at best lukewarm; the Eclectic Review did concede that "where he comes in contact with the ordinary sympathies of human nature, no living poet leaves so the impression of a master genius", but Francis Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, a long-time foe of the Lake Poets, thought it had "the merit of being the worst poem we saw imprinted in a quarto volume".
Coleridge, by in a state of uneasy reconciliation with Wordsworth, quoted a passage from The White Doe in his Biographia Literaria, praising its beauty and imaginative power. John Ruskin, in a private letter, compared it favourably with Coleridge's Christabel, calling it "a poem of equal grace and imagination, but how pure, how just, how chaste in its truth, how high in its end". In the century Leslie Stephen thought that the poem unduly exalted passive heroism at the expense of active heroism, thought its "rough borderers" unlikely mouthpieces for Wordsworth's message of quietism and submission to circumstances, his wry comment was that "The White Doe is one of those poems which make many readers inclined to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's rugged insensibility. In the 20th century the critic Alice Comparetti and the poet Donald Davie were
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria, his critical work on William Shakespeare, was influential, he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar phrases, including suspension of disbelief, he had a major influence on American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life Coleridge had crippling bouts of depression, he was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with laudanum. Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in the town of Ottery St Mary in England. Samuel's father was the Reverend John Coleridge, the well-respected vicar of St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary and was headmaster of the King's School, a free grammar school established by King Henry VIII in the town.
He had been master of Hugh Squier's School in South Molton and lecturer of nearby Molland. John Coleridge had three children by his first wife. Samuel was the youngest of ten by the Reverend Mr. Coleridge's second wife, Anne Bowden the daughter of John Bowden, Mayor of South Molton, Devon, in 1726. Coleridge suggests that he "took no pleasure in boyish sports" but instead read "incessantly" and played by himself. After John Coleridge died in 1781, 8-year-old Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital, a charity school, founded in the 16th century in Greyfriars, where he remained throughout his childhood and writing poetry. At that school Coleridge became friends with Charles Lamb, a schoolmate, studied the works of Virgil and William Lisle Bowles. In one of a series of autobiographical letters written to Thomas Poole, Coleridge wrote: "At six years old I remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, Philip Quarll – and I found the Arabian Nights' Entertainments – one tale of which made so deep an impression on me that I was haunted by spectres whenever I was in the dark – and I distinctly remember the anxious and fearful eagerness with which I used to watch the window in which the books lay – and whenever the sun lay upon them, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, bask, read."
However, Coleridge seems to have appreciated his teacher, as he wrote in recollections of his school days in Biographia Literaria: I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a sensible, though at the same time, a severe master At the same time that we were studying the Greek Tragic Poets, he made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons: and they were the lessons too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learnt from him, that Poetry that of the loftiest, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science. In our own English compositions he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words... In fancy I can hear him now, exclaiming Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, you mean! Muse, Muse? Your Nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! the cloister-pump, I suppose! Be this as it may, there was one custom of our master's, which I cannot pass over in silence, because I think it... worthy of imitation.
He would permit our theme exercises... to accumulate, till each lad had four or five to be looked over. Placing the whole number abreast on his desk, he would ask the writer, why this or that sentence might not have found as appropriate a place under this or that other thesis: and if no satisfying answer could be returned, two faults of the same kind were found in one exercise, the irrevocable verdict followed, the exercise was torn up, another on the same subject to be produced, in addition to the tasks of the day, he wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem Frost at Midnight: "With unclosed lids had I dreamt/Of my sweet birthplace." From 1791 until 1794, Coleridge attended Cambridge. In 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode. In December 1793, he left the college and enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons using the false name "Silas Tomkyn Comberbache" because of debt or because the girl that he loved, Mary Evans, had rejected him, his brothers arranged for his discharge a few months under the reason of "insanity" and he was readmitted to Jesus College, though he would never receive a degree from the university.
At Jesus College, Coleridge was introduced to political and theological ideas considered radical, including those of the poet Robert Southey. Coleridge joined Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian commune-like society, called Pantisocracy, in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. In 1795, the two friends married sisters Sara and Edith Fricker, in St Mary Redcliffe, but Coleridge's marriage with Sara proved unhappy, he grew to detest his wi
Cockermouth
Cockermouth is an ancient market town and civil parish in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England, so named because it is at the confluence of the River Cocker as it flows into the River Derwent. The mid-2010 census estimates state that Cockermouth has a population of 8,204, increasing to 8,761 at the 2011 Census. A part of Cumberland, Cockermouth is situated outside the English Lake District on its northwest fringe. Much of the architectural core of the town remains unchanged since the basic medieval layout was filled in the 18th and 19th centuries; the regenerated market place is now a central historical focus within the town and reflects events during its 800-year history. The town is prone to flooding and has experienced severe floods in 2005, 2009, 2015. Cockermouth, is "the mouth of the River Cocker", it has been noted on lists of unusual place names. Cockermouth owes its existence to the confluence of the rivers Cocker and Derwent, being the lowest point at which the resultant fast flowing river powered by the Lake District could be bridged.
Cockermouth is situated a few minutes travelling distance from lakes such as Buttermere, Crummock Water and Bassenthwaite. Cockermouth has a temperate climate, influenced by the Irish Sea and its low-lying elevation. Cockermouth receives below average rainfall compared with the UK average. Temperatures are round about average compared with other parts of the UK; the nearest weather station for which online records are available is Aspatria, about 7 miles north-northeast of the town centre. The hottest temperatures recorded in the area were 31.3 °C at Lorton on 19 July 2006 and 31.1 °C at Aspatria during August 1990, with the coldest being −13.9 °C during January 1982 at Aspatria and −13.8 °C at Lorton on 8 December 2010. West Cumbria gets little snow in comparison with the Lake District and Eastern Cumbria. Owing to its proximity to the Irish Sea and its low height above sea level; the Romans built a fort at Derventio Carvetiorum, now the adjoining village of Papcastle, to protect the river crossing on a major route for troops heading towards Hadrian's Wall.
The main town developed under the Normans who, after occupying the former Roman fort, built Cockermouth Castle closer to the river crossing: little remains today of the castle thanks to the efforts of Robert the Bruce. The market town developed its distinctive medieval layout, of a broad main street of burgesses' houses, each with a burgage plot stretching to a "back lane": the Derwent bank on the north and Back Lane, on the south; the layout is preserved, leading the British Council for Archaeology to say in 1965 that it was worthy of special care in preservation and development. The town market pre-dates 1221. Market charters were granted in 1221 and 1227 by King Henry III, although this does not preclude the much earlier existence of a market in the town. In recent times, the trading farmers market now only occurs seasonally, replaced by weekend continental and craft markets. In the days when opening hours of public houses were restricted, the fact that the pubs in Cockermouth could open all day on market days made the town a popular destination for drinkers on Bank Holiday Mondays.
The Market Bell remains as a reminder of this period. While the 1761 and Castle pub have been renovated to reveal medieval stonework and 16th and 18th-century features. Much of the centre of the town is of medieval origin rebuilt in Georgian style with Victorian infill; the tree lined Kirkgate offers examples of unspoilt classical late 17th and 18th-century terraced housing, cobbled paving and curving lanes which run steeply down to the River Cocker. Most of the buildings are of traditional slate and stone construction with thick walls and green Skiddaw slate roofs. Many of the facades lining the streets are frontages for historic housing in alleyways and lanes to the rear. Examples of Georgian residences may be found near the Market Place, St. Helens Street, at the bottom of Castlegate Drive and Kirkgate. Cockermouth lays claim to be the first town in Britain to have piloted electric lighting. In 1881 six powerful electric lamps were set up to light the town, together with gas oil lamps in the back streets.
Service proved intermittent, there was afterwards a return to gas lighting. In 1964, Cockermouth was named one of 51'Gem Towns' in the UK, by the Council for British Archaeology; this recognised the importance of the historic buildings, the need to manage traffic management and the urban development. The centre of Cockermouth retains much of its historic character and the renovation of Market Place has been completed, now with an artistic and community focus; the Kirkgate Centre is the town's major cultural focus and offers regular historical displays by the Cockermouth Museum Group in addition to holding major cultural events including theatre, international music and world cinema. The tree-lined main street boasts a statue of Lord Mayo an MP for Cockermouth, who became British Viceroy of India and whose subsequent claim to fame was that he was assassinated; the renovated arts and cultural zone in the 13th century Market Place has undergone something of a "regeneration" following European Union funding, is now pedestrian-friendly adorned with stone paving and roadways, underground lighting and controversial seating in bright colours to reflect the area's facades.
Pavement art and stonework commemorate eclectic histori
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
"She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" is a three-stanza poem written by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth in 1798 when he was 28 years old. The verse was first printed in Lyrical Ballads, 1800, a volume of Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems that marked a climacteric in the English Romantic movement; the poem is the best known of Wordsworth's series of five works which comprise his "Lucy" series, was a favorite amongst early readers. It was composed both as a meditation on his own feelings of loneliness and loss, as an ode to the beauty and dignity of an idealized woman who lived unnoticed by all others except by the poet himself; the title line implies Lucy lived remote, both physically and intellectually. The poet's subject's isolated sensitivity expresses a characteristic aspect of Romantic expectations of the human, of the poet's, condition. According to the literary critic Kenneth Ober, the poem describes the "growth and death" of Lucy. Whether Wordsworth has declared his love for her is left ambivalent, whether she had been aware of the poet's affection is unsaid.
However the poet's feelings remain unrequited, his final verse reveals that the subject of his affections has died alone. Lucy's "untrodden ways" are symbolic to the poet of both her physical isolation and the unknown details of her mind and life. In the poem, Wordsworth is concerned not so much with his observation of Lucy, but with his experience when reflecting on her death. "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" consists of three quatrains, describes Lucy who lives in solitude near the source of the River Dove. In order to convey the dignity and unaffected flowerlike naturalness of his subject, Wordsworth uses simple language words of one syllable. In the opening quatrain, he describes the isolated and untouched area where Lucy lived, while her innocence is explored in the second, during which her beauty is compared to that of a hidden flower; the final stanza laments Lucy's lonesome death, which only he notices. Throughout the poem and ecstasy are intertwined, emphasised by the exclamation marks in the second and third verses.
The effectiveness of the concluding line in the concluding stanza has divided critics and has variously been described as "a masterstroke of understatement" and overtly sentimental. Wordsworth's voice remains muted, he was silent about the poem and series throughout his life; this fact was mentioned by 19th century critics, however they disagreed as to its value. A critic, writing in 1851, remarked on the poem's "deep but subdued and silent devour."This is written with an economy and spareness intended to capture the simplicity the poet sees in Lucy. Lucy's femininity is described in the verse in girlish terms, a fact that has drawn criticism from some critics that see a female icon, in the words of John Woolford "represented in Lucy by condemning her to death while denying her the actual or symbolic fulfillment of maternity". To evoke the "loveliness of body and spirit", a pair of complementary but opposite images are employed in the second stanza: a solitary violet and hidden, Venus, emblem of love, the first star of evening and visible to all.
Wondering which Lucy most resembled—the violet or the star—the critic Cleanth Brooks concluded that although Wordsworth viewed her as "the single star dominating world, not arrogantly like the sun, but sweetly and modestly". Brooks considered the metaphor only vaguely relevant, a conventional and anomalous complement. For Wordsworth, Lucy's appeal is closer to the violet and lies in her seclusion, her perceived affinity with nature. Wordsworth purchased a copy of Thomas Percy's collection of British ballad material "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" in Hamburg a few months before he began to compose the Lucy series; the influence of traditional English folk ballad is evident in the meter and structure of the poem. She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways follows the variant ballad stanza a4—b3—a4 b3, in keeping with ballad tradition seeks to tell its story in a dramatic manner; as the critic Kenneth Ober observed, "To confuse the mode of the'Lucy' poems with that of the love lyric is to overlook their structure, in which, as in the traditional ballad, a story is told as boldly and as possible."
Ober compares the opening lines of She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways to the traditional ballad Katharine Jaffray and notes the similarities in rhythm and structure, as well as in theme and imagery: According to the critic Carl Woodring, "She Dwelt" can be read as an elegy. He views the poem and the Lucy series in general as elegiac "in the sense of sober meditation on death or a subject related to death", that they have "the economy and the general air of epitaphs in the Greek Anthology... if all elegies are mitigations of death, the Lucy poems are meditations on simple beauty, by distance made more sweet and by death preserved in distance". One passage was intended for the poem "Michael"–"Renew'd their search begun where from Dove Crag / Ill home for bird so gentle / they look'd down / On Deep-dale Head, Brothers-water". Wordsworth wrote his series of "Lucy" poems during a stay with his sister Dorothy in Hamburg, between October 1798 and April 1801; the real life identity of Lucy has never been identified, it is probable that she was not modeled on any one historical person.
Wordsworth himself never addressed the matter of her persona, was reticent about commenting on the series. Although a great detail is known of the circumstances and details of Wordsworth's life, from the time he spend during of his stay in Germany comparatively little record survives. Only one known mention from the poet that referen
