Female Literature Deserves the Same Regognition as Traditional Male Lit

Female Literature Deserves the Same Regognition as usageal phallic LiteratureLiterary critic, Jane Tompkins targets the male-dominated scholarly tradition that controls both the canon of the Statesn literature - and the critical perspective that interprets the canon for society (502), in her geographic expedition of the canonical exclusion of Kate Chopins The Awakening, written in 1899, and Charlotte Perkins Gilmans 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Tompkins elevate notes that the tradition of Perry Miller, F.O. Matthiessen, Harry Levin, Richard Chase, R.W.B. Lewis, Yvor Winters, and Henry Nash Smith has prevented even committed feminists from recognizing and asseverate the value of a powerful and specifically female novelistic tradition (502-3). Tompkins admonition of the scholarly tradition not only asserts the existence of a male-dominated literary paradigm and exclusivity but, with this literary gate keeping, also questions how tradition be bewilders imprinted upon us so as to color our judgment. Tradition becomes the constant, the thing we write, read, rebel against and, interestingly, the thing we supplant with a new tradition once we are excluded from the established boys club. But how does a so staunchly established tradition, which determines the inclusion and exclusion of literary works, come to be? Tompkins posits the existence of a male-centered agenda that masks its biases as universal standards of aesthetic judgment (503). These universal standards of aesthetics are subsequently biased against domains which obtain traditionally been declared feminine. Tompkins indeed contends that twentieth-century critics have taught generations of students to equate popularity with debasement, emotionality with ... ...knowledging and salaried homage to the powers that we keep in power, all in the name of tradition. Tradition is a paradox, for it oftentimes seems bigger than us our own creation becomes a wall, seemingly insurmountable and imp enetrable, that indeed crumbles by our own questioning and refutation. whole kit CitedBaym, N. (1978). Womans Fiction A Guide to Novels By and About Women in America 1820 1870. Ithaca Cornell U.P. Bloom, H. (1975). A Map of Misreading. New York Oxford U.P. Kolodny, A. (1980). A map for rereading Or, Gender and the variant of Literary Texts. New Literary History A Journal of conjecture and Interpretation 11, 451-67. Tompkins, J. P.(1985) Sentimental power Uncle Toms cabin and the politics of literary history. scandalmongering Designs The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860, New York Oxford U.P.