The Female Canon Practice Questions
20 free The Female Canon practice questions for the English Literature. Tap an option to answer — you get instant feedback, the correct answer, and a detailed explanation for every question.
The term 'Gynocriticism', a key framework for establishing a female canon, was coined by which feminist critic?
- A Sandra Gilbert
- B Elaine Showalter
- C Julia Kristeva
- D Simone de Beauvoir
Correct answer: Elaine Showalter
Elaine Showalter developed 'Gynocriticism' in her work 'A Literature of Their Own'. It focuses on the female writer as the producer of textual meaning, rather than women as consumers of male-produced literature.
Which influential text argues that for a woman to write, she must 'kill the Angel in the House'?
- A A Room of One's Own
- B Professions for Women
- C The Second Sex
- D The Madwoman in the Attic
Correct answer: Professions for Women
In her speech 'Professions for Women', Virginia Woolf describes the 'Angel in the House' as the phantom of Victorian womanhood that urged women to be selfless and pure. Woolf argues that a female writer must kill this ideal to gain the mental freedom to write truthfully.
In 'The Madwoman in the Attic', Gilbert and Gubar argue that 19th-century female writers often suffered from what psychological condition regarding the male-dominated canon?
- A Anxiety of Influence
- B Anxiety of Authorship
- C Repetition Compulsion
- D The Electra Complex
Correct answer: Anxiety of Authorship
Expanding on Harold Bloom's 'Anxiety of Influence', Gilbert and Gubar proposed the 'Anxiety of Authorship'. They argued that women felt a fundamental alienation from a literary tradition that defined the act of creation as inherently masculine.
Which 1970s feminist press was instrumental in 'recovering' lost female writers like Rebecca West and Zora Neale Hurston for the modern canon?
- A The Women’s Press
- B Virago Press
- C Seal Press
- D Persephone Books
Correct answer: Virago Press
Virago Press, founded in 1973, dedicated itself to republishing out-of-print works by women. This 'recovery project' was a cornerstone of second-wave feminism's effort to prove the existence of a continuous female literary tradition.
Alice Walker is credited with 'canonizing' which Harlem Renaissance author after discovering her unmarked grave in Florida?
- A Georgia Douglas Johnson
- B Jessie Fauset
- C Zora Neale Hurston
- D Gwendolyn Bennett
Correct answer: Zora Neale Hurston
Alice Walker's 1975 essay 'In Search of Zora Neale Hurston' brought 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' back into the academic and public spotlight. This helped ensure that Black women's voices were included in the broader feminist canon.
The concept of 'Écriture féminine' (feminine writing) suggests that the female canon should be rooted in what?
- A The domestic sphere and housework
- B The female body and libidinal economy
- C Strict adherence to sonnet structures
- D The rejection of all emotional content
Correct answer: The female body and libidinal economy
French feminists like Hélène Cixous argued that women must 'write through the body' to break away from phallogocentric language. This theory posits that female writing is fluid, non-linear, and subversive compared to traditional masculine structures.
Which 18th-century work is often cited as the first major proto-feminist contribution to the English literary canon?
- A A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- B The Female Quixote
- C The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
- D Oroonoko
Correct answer: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 treatise laid the intellectual groundwork for the female canon by arguing for women's rational education. It remains a foundational text in both political philosophy and women's literary history.
The 'Silences' of women writers—periods where they were unable to create due to domestic or social pressures—was famously analyzed by:
- A Tillie Olsen
- B Adrienne Rich
- C Audre Lorde
- D Bell Hooks
Correct answer: Tillie Olsen
Tillie Olsen's 'Silences' (1978) examines the material and social conditions that prevent marginalized groups, particularly women, from writing. She highlights how the canon is distorted by the absence of those who lacked the 'leisure' to produce art.
In 'A Room of One's Own', what fictional character does Woolf create to illustrate the lost potential of women in the Elizabethan era?
- A Mary Beton
- B Clarissa Dalloway
- C Septimus Warren Smith
- D Judith Shakespeare
Correct answer: Judith Shakespeare
Woolf invents Judith Shakespeare, William's imaginary sister, to show that even if she had the same talent as her brother, social restrictions would have led her to a tragic end rather than a literary career. This highlights the systemic exclusion of women from the historical canon.
Black feminist critics like Barbara Smith argue that the 'Mainstream' female canon often ignores the intersections of:
- A Genre and Meter
- B The Business of Publishing and Marketing
- C Satire and Parody
- D Race, Class, and Sexuality
Correct answer: Race, Class, and Sexuality
Intersectionality is a crucial critique of the early female canon, which often focused on white, middle-class experiences. Smith and other critics argue that a true canon must account for how multiple identities overlap to shape a writer's voice.
Which novel is considered a 'counter-canonical' response to Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre'?
- A Wide Sargasso Sea
- B The Yellow Wallpaper
- C Beloved
- D The Color Purple
Correct answer: Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys’s 'Wide Sargasso Sea' gives a voice to Bertha Mason, the 'madwoman in the attic'. By decentering the white heroine, Rhys critiques the imperialist and patriarchal assumptions present in the original canonical text.
Who authored the influential essay 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence', expanding the canon to include queer perspectives?
- A Audre Lorde
- B Gloria Anzaldúa
- C Adrienne Rich
- D Judith Butler
Correct answer: Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich argued that heterosexuality is a political institution rather than a natural preference. Her work pushed the female canon to recognize the 'lesbian continuum'—a range of woman-identified experiences that exist outside patriarchal norms.
The term 'Scribbling Women' was a derogatory label used by which male author to describe his successful female contemporaries?
- A Charles Dickens
- B Ralph Waldo Emerson
- C Henry James
- D Nathaniel Hawthorne
Correct answer: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne famously complained about a 'damned mob of scribbling women' whose popular novels were outselling his own. This quote is often used by feminist scholars to illustrate the historic hostility male gatekeepers held toward women's literary success.
In the context of the female canon, what does the 'Matrilineal' tradition refer to?
- A Women writers only writing about their mothers.
- B The practice of women taking their mother’s maiden name as a pen name.
- C Writing that is exclusively passed down via oral tradition.
- D Women authors drawing on female literary predecessors, not male ones.
Correct answer: Women authors drawing on female literary predecessors, not male ones.
Feminist scholars argue that women writers create a 'matrilineal' tradition by citing and building upon the work of previous women. This counters the 'patrilineal' focus of the traditional Great Books canon.
Which Adrienne Rich poem uses an underwater exploration metaphor to describe the feminist task of uncovering hidden truths about women's history?
- A Diving into the Wreck
- B Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
- C Twenty-One Love Poems
- D Planetarium
Correct answer: Diving into the Wreck
The poem 'Diving into the Wreck' is a central text in the study of the female canon. It symbolizes the poet's journey to rediscover the 'book of myths' in which women's names and stories do not appear or are misrepresented.
What is the 'Bechdel Test' primarily used to measure in modern media and literature?
- A Whether two women talk about anything besides a man.
- B The reading level of a female protagonist.
- C The number of female authors in a university syllabus.
- D The ratio of female to male characters in a tragedy.
Correct answer: Whether two women talk about anything besides a man.
Originally from Alison Bechdel's comic 'Dykes to Watch Out For', this test has become a popular cultural shorthand for evaluating female representation. It highlights how often women's stories in the canon are secondary to male character arcs.
Which work by Christine de Pizan is often regarded as the earliest 'pro-woman' response to the misogynistic literary canon of the Middle Ages?
- A The Book of the City of Ladies
- B The Tale of the Rose
- C The Revelations of Divine Love
- D The Book of Margery Kempe
Correct answer: The Book of the City of Ladies
Written in 1405, de Pizan’s work defends women against the attacks of contemporary male writers. She constructs an allegorical city where great women from history and mythology are protected, creating an early 'canon' of female excellence.
The 'Anxiety of Authorship' theory posits that women often used what literary device to express their 'rebellious' impulses indirectly?
- A Palimpsestic writing or ‘Double Discourse’
- B Strict chronological realism
- C Exclusively first-person singular narration
- D The epic invocation
Correct answer: Palimpsestic writing or ‘Double Discourse’
Feminist critics argue that many canonical female authors used a 'double discourse'—a surface level that appears conventional and a subtext that is subversive. This allowed them to publish within a patriarchal system while still critiquing it.
Which writer's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' was rediscovered by feminist scholars as a canonical critique of the 'rest cure' and domestic confinement?
- A Edith Wharton
- B Mary Wilkins Freeman
- C Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- D Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Correct answer: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Gilman's short story was long forgotten or dismissed as a simple horror story until feminist critics in the 1970s re-read it as a powerful indictment of how patriarchal medicine and domesticity can lead to the mental breakdown of women.
According to Elaine Showalter's classification of female literary history, the 'Female' stage (post-1920) is characterized by:
- A Imitation of male standards and pseudonyms.
- B Protest against these standards and advocacy for legal rights.
- C The total abandonment of the novel form.
- D Self-discovery and a search for a distinct female identity.
Correct answer: Self-discovery and a search for a distinct female identity.
Elaine Showalter identified three stages: Feminine (imitation), Feminist (protest), and Female (self-discovery). In the 'Female' stage, women writers move beyond reacting to men and focus on exploring their own autonomous experiences and aesthetics.