256 American Literature
As it happens, I myself think that feminist criticism has proved far more interesting than other recent theoretical movements at the level of practical criticism: unlike deconstruction, for example, feminism has generated a striking number of re-interpretations that are interesting, persuasive, or both. But I would like to suggest that perhaps this assumption is too easily made about other luminaries in “the academy’s white, male, heterosexist curriculum.” At any rate, I think we should take a look at what the demotion of Hemingway looks like in actual practice. Once this is done, I want to question that general thrust of feminist revisionism as applied to American literary history.
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“If, when using literary materials to make what is essentially a political point, we find ourselves virtually rewriting a text, ignoring certain aspects of plot or characterization, or oversimplifying the action to fit our ‘political’ thesis, then we are neither practicing an honest criticism nor saying anything useful about the nature of art…”
In point of fact, there has been very little feminist criticism of Hemingway. Indeed, as Robert Scholes recently remarked, there has been relatively little criticism of Hemingway by women, feminist or non-feminist. As a representative of feminist critique, however, Judith Fetterley’s chapter on A Farewell to Arms should serve our purposes. Her book has been approved by almost all
I would recommend the following books as especially relevant to the American canon: Nina Baym, Women’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870 (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977); Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1978); Wendy Martin, An American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Adrienne Rich (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1984); Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985); Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986).
Adelaide Morris, “Locutions and Locations: More Feminist Theory and Practice, 1985,” College English, 49 (1987), 466.
Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 58-59
A Farewell to Arms: Hemingway’s Resentful Cryptogram,’” The Resisting Reader: