Separate Spheres and 19thC American Feminist Literary Criticism

Davidsonís "No More Separate Spheres"

A. Merits: allows students and critics to focus only on women writers who have been excluded from the canon. Problems: breeds binary thinking, oversimplifies complexities of 19thC culture (p. 444).
B. "Separate Spheres" romanticizes terms like "cult of true womanhood," "cult of domesticity," and suggests that women willingly choose their separate worlds.
QUESTION: Is Davidsonís conclusion necessarily correct? For critics such as Armstrong, Newton, and Kaplan, the focus on women in 19thC literature as arbiters of sensibility need not be a celebratory gesture. In fact, all 3 critics point to the exclusionary nature of the bourgeois subject and comment about the womenís collusion with the ongoing power structure (p. 444 ¶ 1)

A. Fetterley and Pryse: post-separate spheres rhetoric brings the focus away form the woman-as-writer. The result is a return to obscurity and marginalization as well as focus on issues that obscure gender politics.
B. Ideological Critique: gender does not exist separately from historical determinants and therefore cannot exist as its own "sphere." The critic need not engage in a celebratory discussion about the author. To complicate the authorís ideological practices is not an act of erasure.

Berlantís "Poor Eliza"

A. The sentimental notion of an "unconflicted world" is a paradox­breeds a false reaction of serious ideological conflicts.
B. The story Uncle Tomís Cabin in The King and I and Dimples offers a pedagogy of sensibility and documents the rising middle class as the fulfillment of a national utopian promise (651).
C. Post-Sentimental Texts: Challenge the sentimental fictionís dream of an unconflicted world. Eg. Beloved. Setheís river crossing differs greatly from Elizaís journey. Sethe cannot forget her past, canít stop running because that kind of reconciliation isnít possible.

Questions:

1. In terms of Davidsonís preface, does ideological critique of 19th century womenís texts represent a move away from an effective practice of gender critique?
2. In Berlantís analysis of post-sentimental texts, how is her examination brought out in greater depth given the "sentimental" depictions of Beloved in the recent film?
3. How do we address Davidsonís and Berlantís concerns without replicating the errors they identify?

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