THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LITERATURE AND FEMINISM

KANNADALITERATURE

The expression Literary Feminism has two key words: literature and feminism. The term is used interchangeably with feminist literary criticism. As an academic subject, different from countless activists fighting discrimination and bias in the real world, feminism is an interdisciplinary field which cuts across subject boundaries. Students of history, psychology, sociology, law, among others, study feminism. However, feminism has an extremely important relationship to literary studies. Since its beginning the literary dimension of feminism has played a very important role in shaping the nature of the subject, hence the currency of the expression literary feminism. Literary studies has not been a stable field. How literature is defined and studied and what constitutes the subject matter of literature are questions which have been answered differently in different times. The advent of theory since the sixties has changed the way readers approach works of literature. Literature was earlier viewed as a universal and timeless artifact. For example it was generally held that the message in the works of literature, particularly in the works of great writers like Shakespeare and Milton, was addressed to all people in all times to come.

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