Elizabeth Langland

A Feminist perspective in the academy : the difference it makes

The advent of womens studies has brought a feminist perspective into the academy-but has it made a difference there? Has it transformed our curriculum; has it reshaped our materials; has it altered our knowledge? In the essays collected here, nine distinguished scholars provide an overview of the differences the feminist perspective makes-and could make-in scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Carefully documented and judiciously critical, these essays inform the reader about developments in feminist scholarship in literary criticism, the performing arts, religion, history, political science, economics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology. The authors point out achievements of lasting value and indicate how these might become an integral part of the various disciplines.

Critics on Anne Brontë: a ‘literary Cinderella’

The historical problem for the critic of Anne Bronte — as should by now be clear — is to acknowledge the extent of her indebtedness to her sisters and to her milieu while also recognising the scope of her contributions. That is, Anne’s art is shaped by its context without being confined by it; it is also distinctive, innovative, and influential, especially so on Charlotte. Anne not only took her subjects and techniques from her world, but, like all creative artists, she transformed them.

Anne Brontë’s Life: ‘age and experience’

Just as it has been inevitable that Anne Bronte should be seen within the context of her more famous sisters, Emily and Charlotte, so it has been inevitable that she has been done the least justice in that context. We must see her in that context to understand her, but we must also recognise the ways in which she casts her own lights and is not merely a reflection of her greater sisters. Anne’s personality, interests, and experiences all shaped for her an increasingly individual approach to life, an approach necessarily reflected in her art. But, too often, rather than receive recognition for its distinction, Anne’s literary achievement has been perceived as a colourless shadow of her sisters’.

The Poems: ‘pillars of witness’

It may seem that close attention to Anne Bronte’s poetic corpus is unwarranted in the light of her status as a very minor poet. Yet because the body of work constitutes the spiritual autobiography of a person for whom we have little other such evidence (as in letters and diaries) and because the lyrics have their own quiet merit, we would distort our understanding of Anne Bronte and continue certain long-standing prejudices against her by failing to give the poems detailed consideration. In addition, in producing a body of verse that continues to find readers, Anne Bronte has placed herself among a very small minority of women poets in the nineteenth century.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: ‘wholesome truths’ versus ‘soft nonsense’

In writing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte achieved a dramatic narrative and philosophical advance from Agnes Grey. Although we can trace the continuity in certain themes between the two novels, the manner, style, technique, character, and episode through which those themes are developed and examined differ substantially. There is also a new thematic depth, an increasingly mature handling of theme, and a deepening grasp of the ways in which form and subject interpenetrate. Instead of presenting the quiet story of one individual’s growth related through that individual’s perspective, Anne Bronte’s second novel details the growth or deterioration of several characters and employs a sophisticated technique of layered narratives that undergirds the novel’s preeminent theme. This theme presents ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ as a complex interpretation, inevitably coloured by individual personalities. It is a product of Bronte’s own sophisticated appreciation of context and ‘truth’.

Influences: ‘Acton Bell is neither Currer nor Ellis Bell’

In the Bronte mythology of three talented, intimate and devoted sisters, Anne has played, in George Moore’s words, the role of ‘literary Cinderella’, relegated to the ashes of history for her failure to reach the standards set by her sisters.1 In short, it is usually assumed that Anne is trying to do what Emily and Charlotte are doing but that Anne cannot succeed through lack of talent. I suggest, instead, that Anne was self-consciously critiquing her sisters’ work and establishing alternative standards and values. Ironically, Anne has played, vis-a-vis her sisters, the traditional role of the woman writer within patriarchy. That is, Anne is critiquing her sisters’ works in the same way that women writers critique the values and standards of male writers. And rather than acknowledge the critique and distinction, we have measured the work by inappropriate standards which cannot do justice to its achievement. Such is often the fate of the woman writer in patriarchal culture. We might also note that as the surviving sister, Charlotte was in the position of ‘patriarch’ to determine which of Emily’s and Anne’s novels were reprinted and which were not.

Agnes Grey: ‘all true histories contain instruction’

Agnes Grey tells a story of female development. What makes it distinctive from previous novels by women with female protagonists is that Agnes more closely follows a male pattern of development. The classic starting point for the male Bildungsroman, or novel of development, is the protagonist’s dissatisfaction with home and a corollary desire to gain experience in the larger world. While Agnes cannot simply take to the open road like a male hero, she nonetheless longs ‘to see a little more of the world’ (AG 4). She resists being kept the ‘child and the pet of the family... too helpless and dependent — too unfit for buffeting with the cares and turmoils of life’ (AG 4). She wants ‘To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers; to earn my own maintenance...’ (AG 10). Anne’s sounding of these aims heralds the arrival of a heroine new to fiction, one to whom, as we have seen, Charlotte owes a major debt.

‘They shared a laboratory together’: Feminist collaboration in the academy

Abstract Virginia Woolfs comment that ‘Chloe liked Olivia. They shared a laboratory together’ suggests both the dimensions of female friendship not represented in literary tradition and also a model of female scholary cooperation. ‘Feminist Collaboration in the Academy’ looks at the ways in which feminists can relate to and combat the academys prevalent image of the isolated and usually male scholar. Describing their experience of working together on an anthology of feminist essays, the authors discuss the theoretical implications and problems of feminist collaboration in the academy.