Twenty Years On: A Literature of Their Own Revisited Elaine Showalter

 Introduction

Elaine Showalter’s essay “Twenty Years On: A Literature of Their Own Revisited” is a retrospective reflection on her influential feminist literary history A Literature of Their Own, published in 1977. In this essay, Showalter examines how feminist literary criticism emerged, how her work contributed to its foundations, and how it has been debated, criticized, revised, and expanded over two decades. The essay is both autobiographical and critical, tracing the intellectual history of feminist criticism alongside her own scholarly journey. For students, this essay is important because it explains why women’s writing was excluded from the canon and how feminist criticism reshaped literary studies.

Academic Climate Before Feminist Criticism

Showalter begins by recalling the academic atmosphere of the 1960s, when feminist criticism did not exist as a recognized field. Women writers were largely absent from university syllabi, literary histories, and critical discussions. Male writers dominated the canon, and women were often referred to by diminutive or domestic titles such as “Mrs.” or first names, reflecting a lack of scholarly respect. Critical approaches were dominated by New Criticism and formalist theories, which ignored social and gender contexts. Showalter’s decision to study Victorian women writers was both an act of scholarly interest and a response to this systemic exclusion.

Personal and Political Awakening

Showalter connects her academic work to her political awakening during the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially through her involvement in the women’s liberation movement. Feminist activism gave new meaning to her research and helped her envision a more ambitious project: a literary history that would recover women writers and analyze their shared conditions of production. Teaching women’s writing and working with feminist publishing initiatives convinced her that women’s literature had a collective history that deserved systematic study.

Aim of A Literature of Their Own

The central aim of A Literature of Their Own was to establish the existence of a female literary tradition in English fiction. Showalter sought to show that women writers were not isolated figures but part of an evolving tradition shaped by social conditions, publishing practices, critical reception, and literary influence. Importantly, she rejected biological explanations for women’s writing, arguing instead that women’s literature developed through historical, cultural, and institutional forces.

Women’s Writing as a Subculture

Showalter uses the idea of subculture to explain women’s writing. Like other marginalized literary traditions, women’s writing developed in relation to a dominant male literary culture. She argued that women’s fiction moved toward a form of female realism, focusing on women’s everyday lives within families and communities. Over time, she believed, women’s writing could move from the margins into the literary mainstream without losing its distinctiveness.

Three Phases of Women’s Writing

One of Showalter’s most influential contributions is her division of women’s writing into three phases:

Feminine phase, where women imitated male literary norms

Feminist phase, where women openly protested against patriarchy

Female phase, where women sought autonomous self-expression

  This model helped students and scholars understand the historical progression of women’s literature, though Showalter later acknowledges that it is a flexible, historically specific framework rather than a rigid universal law.

Reception and Criticism of the Book

While A Literature of Their Own was widely influential, it was also heavily criticized. Some critics accused Showalter of being too traditional, others of being too radical. She was attacked from multiple theoretical positions for being separatist, canonical, anti-theoretical, and even politically incorrect. Showalter chose not to defend the book aggressively, believing that feminist criticism should remain open to debate and revision.

Theoretical Debates and French Feminism

A major theoretical challenge came from critics influenced by French feminism and poststructuralism, especially Toril Moi. These critics argued that Showalter lacked explicit theory and relied too heavily on realism and liberal humanism. Showalter responds by clarifying that her questions were historical rather than philosophical. She was concerned with how women’s writing developed over time, not with abstract theories of language or textuality.

Gynocriticism

Showalter introduces the concept of gynocriticism, which focuses on women as writers rather than as representations in male texts. Gynocriticism seeks to study women’s literary history, themes, genres, and structures from within women’s own experiences. This approach became a major foundation of feminist literary studies and helped legitimize the academic study of women’s writing.

Canon and Literary History

Showalter strongly defends the importance of literary history and the idea of a canon, even within feminist criticism. She argues that rejecting all forms of evaluation leads to intellectual emptiness. Feminist criticism, she insists, must be able to judge literary quality while also understanding political and social contexts. Women’s writing does not need special protection; it can withstand rigorous aesthetic analysis.

Debate on the New Woman Novel

Showalter revisits her earlier assessment of the New Woman fiction of the 1890s, which some critics felt she undervalued. While she acknowledges the political importance of these novels, she maintains that many of them lacked aesthetic coherence. She argues that women writers of this period were caught between Victorian realism and emerging modernist experimentation, making the novel a difficult form for them. However, she praises women’s short stories of the period as more successful and innovative.

 Changes in Feminist Literary Studies

Looking back, Showalter recognizes that feminist criticism has grown more inclusive, incorporating perspectives of race, class, sexuality, and postcolonial theory. She admits that her original book had limitations shaped by its historical moment. If rewriting it today, she would adopt a broader comparative and global approach to women’s writing.

Contemporary Relevance of Women’s Writing

Showalter notes that women’s writing is now institutionally established through curricula, anthologies, publishing houses, literary prizes, and digital archives. Feminist criticism has succeeded in making women’s literature visible and accessible. The boundaries between national literatures are also becoming blurred, reflecting globalization and transnational influences.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Showalter emphasizes that feminist literary history is not about discovering a single great woman writer but about establishing the continuity, legitimacy, and richness of women’s writing as a tradition. While debates and disagreements continue, the success of feminist criticism lies in its lasting transformation of literary studies. Showalter ends on a reflective and optimistic note, expressing pride in having contributed to a collective intellectual movement that reshaped how literature is read, taught, and valued.