American Women Writers and Literary Criticism: Agreements and Disagreements

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Eulalia Piñero Gil

Abstract

This essay analyzes how American literary criticism has been the mirror of silences,
prejudices and invisibilities that have confined many American women writers to a
permanent oblivion and suppression during decades. There are many examples in the


critical discourse that suggest a pervading desire to eliminate women writers from the
canon and the literary history. It might be inferred that those attitudes are policies of the
past as the individual success indicates changes in the literary marketplace. Nevertheless,
reality confirms the opposite: those are exceptions that confirm the rule. The truth of
literary criticism is that there has been no history of American women writers until Elaine
Showalter’s A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie
Proulx was published in 2009. In this meticulous literary history, the writer highlights how
women`s writings have been categorized by clichés and biological value judgments.
Likewise, in this groundbreaking work, Showalter emphasizes the importance of women’s
relation to the literary marketplace, and examines literary influence rather than the
implications of the essential sexual difference.

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How to Cite

American Women Writers and Literary Criticism: Agreements and Disagreements. (2018). VERBEIA. Revista De Estudios Filológicos. Journal of English and Spanish Studies, 2, 82-96. https://doi.org/10.57087/Verbeia.2018.4047