| This dissertation argues for the acceptance of personal literary criticism as a viable alternative to a traditional literary criticism exemplified by the phrase, "the seamless objective article." The importance of this acceptance resides in its allowance of the extension of academic writing to an audience thus far mostly ignored by academe, that of the popular reading public. It examines the meaning of "personal," and the development of the self voice, by considering ideas from both postmodernism and feminism. Both of these approaches argue that the formation of self-concept/subjectivity, that is, the personal, remains contingent upon outside forces.; The dissertation focuses on three basic points. First, feminist criticism, an accepted critical approach to the understanding of literature by academe, advocates an ideology of the personal by which female voices free themselves from the traditional patriarchal restraints represented by traditional criticism. These restraints act to shape female subjectivity while simultaneously encouraging the development of a coherent rational concept of self unavailable to women. Second, postmodern thought eschews the privileging of any grand narrative and the resultant marginalization of other approaches that also represent ways of knowing, such as that of the shared meaning produced by localized communities. This philosophy would find academe's privileging of traditional criticism, and its resultant marginalization of the personal, objectionable. Finally, the privileging of traditional criticism may be seen as part of a larger indefensible exclusionary process in academe that discourages the sharing of academic knowledge with the popular reading public, academe's very supporters.; The dissertation reflects on its subject of personal literary criticism through practice of that writing approach. Critical consideration in the first person voice focuses on works by George Orwell, Elizabeth Cary, Anne Bradstreet, Katherine Anne Porter, Rabindranath Tagore, Margaret Mitchell, V. S. Naipaul and Charlotte Bronte. These works are used to illumine, in addition to academe's curious disassociation from certain reading audiences, the author's conflicts over matters including loss through divorce and death, the realization of the effective shaping of one's personal identity by contingent forces, and the author's desire to write and publish in various fields. |
