1. How does the life and works of 16th-century writer Veronica Franco and 18th-century writer Leona Florentino defend or promote women's rights in the earlier centuries?
2. What specific issues of women’s rights did their work address?
3. What struggles of the poet are reflected in their works?
Theoretical Lens
The use of the second-wave feminism called as “Gynocriticism” as a theoretical lens will help us understand better about Veronica Franco and Leona Florentino as female writers and their place in literary history. In Gynocriticism, it considers the treatment of female characters in books by both male and female writers. The most important aspect of gynocriticism is the discovery and …show more content…
She contrasts this mode of criticism with what she terms the ‘feminist critique’. (Eagleton, 1991)
Therefore, rather than adapting male models and theories, Gynocriticism constructs a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature which develops new models based on the study of female experience.
Gynocriticism is a literary theory that is relatively new and continues to evolve. From the perspective of Gynocriticism, until the patriarchal ideology of the female is resolved and gender inequality and social subjugation are neutralised, then it remains necessary to review and examine the female literary canon. Indeed, even when gender inequality is no longer an issue, interrogation of 'female' literature will remain valuable as it is the study of sameness and difference in gender that delineates the 'female' literary theory. (Friedman, 1996)
Scope and