Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :"Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism"
To question the source of the aesthetic pleasures we've gained from reading Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and so on, does not imply that we must deny those pleasures. It means only that aesthetic response is once more invested with epistemological, ethical, and moral concerns. It means, in other words, that readings of Paradise Lost which analyze its complex hierarchical structures but fail to note the implications of gender within that hierarchy; or which insist upon the inherent (or even inspired) perfection of Milton's figurative language but fail to note the consequences, for Eve, of her specifically gender-marked weakness….All such readings, however useful, will no longer be deemed wholly adequate. The pleasures we had earlier learned to take in the poem will not be diminished thereby, but they will become part of an altered reading attentiveness.
"Dancing Through the Minefield" asks lit scholars and critics to reconsider their opinions about "great" literature. What makes it so great? Sure, kudos to our profs for teaching us to love the nuances in difficult works by dudes like Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton—knowing lots about their poetry and drama legit means that we can get real pleasure from reading them.
But still. The strategies we use to read them aren't governed by eternal truths: they reflect the values of the cultures that invented them. And hey, in case you haven't noticed, the cultures that invented them have been patriarchal right across the board.
Sure, feminists aren't going to swear off Eddie and Billy and Johnny altogether, but those old reading strategies aren't going to satisfy us anymore. We're going to start paying attention to the women in those texts, and taking stock of how they're pushed to the margins. That doesn't mean we won't give the old boys a few righteous thumbs up for their killer metaphors and rhymes, but from here on out, we've got bigger fish to fry.
Ultimately, she argues that until we recognize the assumptions we're bringing with us to the books we read, we won't be able to understand why women writers—or even female characters—are as awesome as they are.