Feminist theory, women's writing /

Relying heavily on such theorists as Foucault and, especially, Bakhtin, Finke argues in this book for a critical ^D["complexity^D]" that explores the ^D["cultural and historical specificity of oppression, resistance, co-optation, and subversion which marks writing by and about women.^D]" To explore the tensions between female writing and cultural representations of ^D["woman,^D]" Finke examines the ways the love lyrics of female troubadours and the narratives of female mystics (usually recorded by men) enable women to claim power, however unconsciously, in a feudal, patriarchal, and largely homosocial culture. In another chapter she analyzes the style of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) to demonstrate the difficulty with which Mary Wollstonecraft must negotiate the tensions between the public and private spheres assigned to men and women in 18th-century notions of bourgeois individualism. A final chapter argues for a dialogic, historically and politically based theory of aesthetic value. With its extensive bibliography, Finke's work is an important contribution to ongoing theoretical discussions, appropriate for upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.