Welcoming a New Hollow: on Elaine Showalter's "Towards a Feminist Poetics"

I have dealt with examples of both feminist critique and gynocritics in past English courses and personal readings, but what I had never considered were the limitations present in works of feminist critique. The woman as a reader was not something I had considered. I have closely read works like Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (by himself) and Melville’s Benito Cereno – all novels pertaining to levels of feminist critique, but until now I have failed to recognize the pitfall-like fissures in what I now recognize as certain male-constructed histories. Paradise Lost is Milton’s take on Genesis, the creation story, in which Eve is the central female figure, the mother of all mothers, sisters, daughters, etc., and she is depicted as a passive, narcissistic creature, who is easily persuaded by Satan to bite the infamous apple and – under his influence – forces Adam to do the same. Gustavus Vassa’s ‘Narrative’ features brief images of women, always represented as passive animals or as slaves among slaves. Melville’s depiction of the enslaved women aboard the San Dominick is much alike Vassa’s, but aboard this ship, the slaves enslave their captain, and the women are still given little or no respect.

Men have not been exposed to the same level nor amount of historical oppression and angst as the female, and authors use the examples of women in these stories to promote social, historical, and political change. We see that male authorship as a sole voice in the literary canon presents historical and ideological boundaries, and we can recognize a language that is more noisy than informative. What gynocritics provides the scholarly ivory tower of literature with is a frequency that can be interpreted more freely. It essentially rips a hole in the bodily head of literature, out from which can emerge a new voice, one that analyzes and interprets from a perspective of the socially oppressed. The Other gains a voice, and the reader can accept the language as authoritative without worrying about an essence of tyranny.

The more gynocritics that ascend into the known realm of the literary, the more easily and readily we align ourselves with their poverties of innocence, their stories of patriarchal enslavement and destitution; and the more authority-like these figures become. Authority is a powerful device to be wielded, and sometimes authors will abuse it to sneak things past their readers, toying with and exploiting their passivity. Yes, the gynocritics will leave hollows in their wake, but once disturbed, the soil of authority is at least less dense, and passive readers that tumble into these empty spaces need only embrace the practices of critical thinking and close reading to gain the strength required to dig themselves out. With the rising of (any) new voices in the verbal community of literature, readers should only see more necessity in close reading, for it is their only tool and comfort in the world of obscurity that is literature.
By Tom Beedham

E-Books on Your iPod!

Read a 900 page Victorian novel on my Blackberry? No thank you.

We’ve known for some time that the way we consume media is rapidly changing due to changing technologies, and books are no exception. I can’t foresee myself wanting to read novels on the computer or hand held devices, but book mega-companies are moving in that direction in order to stay relevant in this digital age.

On February 25, Indigo Books and Music launched Shortcovers – an application that enables users to buy and download e-books to the BlackBerry Storm, Apple iPhone and iPod Touch as well as via computer. At its launch, 50,000 books were available for sale at prices ranging from $4.99-$19.00 as well as individual chapters for sale for 99¢ each. There are also sample chapters available for free. Eventually, the application will be able to recommend titles to users based on their former reading choices and habits.

I don’t have a BlackBerry or iPhone, so I couldn’t try out the application – if you’ve tried it please comment and let us know your experience with Shortcovers!

I don’t think that the book will ever die, but a large part of why I think that is because the book is portable and you can read anywhere. E-books on hand-held devices allow readers to do this as well. Do you think that this new technology will take off? Would you curl in the coffee shop or in the park and read Dickens – on your iPod (Bleak House, the 900 page Victorian novel mentioned above, is available for digital purchase)? Would you pay $19 for a book you could buy in print for the same price or cheaper?

One aspect of Shortcovers that I am really excited about is that authors can submit their books to the site to be offered to users for free or 99¢ per chapter. This could revolutionize the publishing industry by enabling aspiring authors to “publish” their works without needing a publisher’s support. Evidently, anyone can write things online and reach a wide audience, but the idea of putting one’s book for sale to a presumably wide reading audience is a novel idea. I am excited to see if this helps aspiring authors break into the industry and give us more variety in our choices.

So, have you tried Shortcovers? What do you think about reading on the computer or hand-held device? Will e-books ever be more popular than good ol’ fashioned books?

I don’t have the answers, but I will keep you posted!

-Alison

Welcome!

Hello everyone,

Thanks for stopping by The English Students’ Society’s blog!

As English students, there’s a lot going on in the world that is relevant to our studies, interests, and futures. We’re going to use this space to talk about: the book and media industry, phenomena or fads in the literary world, e-books, how technology and environmental concerns are affecting the industry, movie adaptations, reading technologies, arts funding and policies that affect the arts, careers in the field, frustrations, and much more!

Anyone can contribute to this blog. E-mail blog posts to tess@uoguelph.ca to have them put on the site.

Comments are enabled, and while we encourage debate, please keep comments respectful and on topic. Comments will be moderated frequently but we are not responsible for others’ comments.

I look forward to seeing where this takes us!

Until next time,

-Alison