For a critical hermeneutics of “women’s tradition” in literature

Abstract

This essay reviews the dichotomy between hermeneutics and the critique of ideologies as put forth by Paul Ricoeur, particularly concerning the ways each of these philosophical gestures view the concept of tradition, in order to compare this dichotomy to certain oscillations observed throughout the history of feminist literary criticism. The way tradition is read by feminist criticism first as an oppressive force to be opposed, secondly as a positive search for the past (in the reconfiguration of a particularly female tradition [Showalter, 1977]), and lastly as a problem to be criticized once again, even in its “feminist version”, points to a fluctuation between the critical gesture and the hermeneutic impulse, contained in the same field of studies. Feminist literary criticism may therefore be recognized as a twofold field with a dynamic vocation. The bridges and connections offered by Ricoeur between hermeneutics and the critique of ideology may, perhaps, inspire a clearer distinction between these movements, as well as the dialogue between positions at first seen as antithetical within feminist literary criticism.