Women's Literature by Elizabeth Janeway
     According to Elizabethan Janeway, women’s literature has its own identity. This literature basically represents a different point of view towards life and experience which is not accessible to men. They explore such areas of experience that are regarded as non existent and unimportant by men. So Elizabethan Janeway is of the view that women’s literature is not a subcategory, rather it is a different mainstream having its own identity.

     Janeway further defines women literature to be a literature that uses male language and creates a space for itself. Here, Elizabeth Janeway admits that the language we use is entirely a male language and so this language does not express the women’s feeling at all. But unlike Virginia Woolf, Janeway does not suggest that women should come up with their own new language.

     Janeway disagrees with Woolf and claims that women literature should be such a literature were the same male language is used because it is the only way to communicate and by using the same language the women writers should convey their ideas and thus create a space for oneself.

     Janeway also support the crisis of today who have revealed that the traditional canon of literary works judged as excellent and significant is very masculine. Therefore now when the boundaries are being redrawn, such works which are dropped out of the main stream should also be included in women’s literature, and even those works which were first considered as a marginal should be moved towards the center. Hence in simple terms, Elizabeth Janeway defines Women literature as equally significant as masculine writings.

     When observed with a male perspective, it may seem that women’s literature does not deal with a universal subject; rather it is concerned only about women’s experience. But actually , as highlighted by Janeway, women’s literature by fusing on feminist area particularly deals with the universality it tries to complete the universe by adding to it what has been excluded in the past i.e. women’s experience that is now regarded to be universally valuable.

     Women’s literature mainly includes such women writers who deal with women experience. Not all writing of women, about women, can be called women’s literature. For example, Lillian Hellman’s Plays and McCarthy fiction cannot be included in women’s literature because it is entirely based on the standard set by male through these works include women’s need and desires.

     On the other hand, the woks of Susan Sontag and Hannah Ardent came under women’s literature because they sensed that women’s lives are different from that of men and those differences are investigated by them.

     So, Elizabeth Janeway is of the view that by drawing the attention towards the differences of women’s world, women’s literature attempts to determine a new value for women. But this does not mean that they are rejecting the established values; they are just questioning them.

Jewish Writers

    Jewish writing has occupied an important place in American literature. The major Jewish writers who have contributed to the national literature of America are; Soul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, I.B singer, Philip Roth and others. American English literature has been contributed by these major writers. To call these writers merely Jewish is not good and yet not to call them Jewish is also not good. Still because they are Jewish, Jewish culture or elements of Jewishness come here and there in their writings. If we call them American writers, Jewish cultural markers get lost, and if we call them typically Jewish by considering their cultural elements, the national elements that we find in their writings get background.

    The Jewish Writers and intellectuals appeared in American literature mainly after the great immigration of 1881-1924. Though many Jewish writers entered American literature in the 1920s and 1930s, the major contemporary Jewish writers appeared only in the 1940s. It was mainly between 1945 and 1955 that the Jewish writers in America come forward as a producers of and spokesmen for an influential modern literature.Now it is obvious that most of the Jewish fiction writers started their career after Second World War.Therefore, their experiences were quite similar. And another common fiction factor that they shared was their cultural identity of Jewish group. These two common factors represent the Jewishness of Jewish writers. And this Jewishness is the most important feature of Jewish fiction. When Jews entered America, they strictly led a traditional life. But from the 18 th century due to various waves of Enlightment, liberalism, socialism etc the Jews revolted against the traditional life. The first and second generation Jews in America detached itself from holy books and got associated with the new ideas and moral charges .Moreover, the second generation Jews not only broke away from the tradition but also brought secular revolutionism. So another feature of Jewish Fiction is breaking away from the tradition by getting associated with new idea and moral challenges, and also by bringing secular revolutionism.Besides breaking away from the tradition, the adoption of English language is yet another feature of Jewish fiction. Read More...