00130--Why does Showalter say that feminist criticism is the Wilderness now?

Audio Books

            The term wilderness literally means 'a large areas of land that has never been developed or used for growing crops because it is difficult to live there'.  In history, Wilderness is the woodland region, south of the Rapidan River.  It was the scene of a Civil War between the armies of Grant and Lee in 
May, 1864.  It was Carolyin Heilbrun and Catherine Stimpson, who observed that Feminist Criticism is in the Wilderness now.  The reason is that it has branched out into diverse groups and attitudes, and they cannot reach a monolithic perspective.  Originally it was Mathew Arnold who predicted that literary critics might perish in the wilderness before they reach the promised land.  To the present comment from some critics that Feminist criticism is the wilderness is clearly answered by Showalter.  She says that feminist criticism is in good company because at present, all criticism is in the wilderness.

Audio Books

            Feminist criticism too lacks a systematic and unified theoretical basis.  Different thinkers interpret and explain it differently.  Black critics protest the silence of feminist criticism about black and third world women writers.  They demand a Black feminist aesthetic.  Marxist feminists want to focus on class along with gender.  Literary historians want to uncover the lost tradition.  Post structuralists want to synthesise a new critical mode that is both textual and feminist.  Psycho analytic critics prefer to talk about women's relationship to language and signification.