Write short note on Gynocriticism.

Gynocriticism, frequently cited in the work of Elaine
Showalter, is the study of writing and criticism that reinterprets women’s literary
history. It is the study of women’s literary history by
women.

Showalter called this “hystory” in attempts to also
reinterpret the misguided concept of hysteria of women in literary history.
Historically, (prior to the 20th century) women were largely excluded from the public
sphere. Thus their writing was symbolic of that seclusion and tended to be about matters
of the home. Writers like Virginia Woolf attempted to break free of these limitations
literarily, but also in attempts to formulate a feminine identity free of male
control.

Gynocriticism is the study of women’s literature
as a distinct branch: as a minority literature. The goal is to interpret women’s
literature free of the patriarchal or misogynist tendencies of classical criticism which
tended to praise men’s writing over women’s.

Showalter
traces the development of feminine identity through literature in three phases. Prior to
the 20th century, women were the “idealized female,” as the object of male desire.
Objectification and subjugation were the primary methods of patriarchal suppression. The
next phase was feminism and this was a reaction to that patriarchy. This occurred in the
20th century and was highlighted by the theoretical writing and Civil Rights Movements
of the 1960s. The most recent phase is “female.” This phase defines the female identity
free from those past identities under male-dominated criticism. Gynocriticism is the
reinterpreting of women in literature and history and this is a type of feminism. This
type of criticism supplemented the historical liberation of women and was significant in
that it was carried out and interpreted by women.

As a side
note, part of this field of criticism was a reaction to recent literary theories which
were also perceived as a masculine practice. It certainly was a reaction to the
phallocentric theory from Freudian psychoanalysis that suggested women felt, or were,
inferior to men and that, to be creative (to produce seed), women had to “act
masculine.” So, gynocriticism (and other relevant theories) dispelled this idea as a
socially constructed gender bias.