Some concluding thoughts re: women in early british lit

I'm really glad I chose to focus my readings in class this year on women and the feminine in the texts. Looking over my posts, I'm not sure I completely realized all of my original goals for the project, but I did come away from it feeling much more capable of feminist criticism. When I started out, I think I was mostly interested it because I liked reading with a chip on my shoulder, but by the end, I realized that I, and anyone, can engage in feminist criticism without any sense of anger or ill-will. I think the solution is relatively simple actually, and requires a simple shift in thought. That is, it requires me, as a critic, to remind myself that the author whose work I am analyzing is a human being, as were they people he interacted with and was influenced by. Whether they had ideas about women that were unjust or unfair, there is little accomplished by casting blame or castigation or by hurling insults at writers and societies, but rather to see that they, like we do, have limitations and are susceptible to being blinded by their own interests and desires. If there were a book being written about my life, I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with some of the feminist critics I've been reading talking about it--even if I do consider myself a "feminist." Experimenting in a world where it's easy to cast blame and make judgments about wrongs done and people hurt helped me to see the differences the two connotations we typically associate with the word "criticism" and to realize how easy it is get them confused.