Virginia Woolf's Feminist Literary Theory

Feminist literary theory is a fundamental constituent of twenty-century literary theory. Virginia Woolf, an English woman writer, is the forerunner of feminism. With the aid of her personal writing experience, she elucidated conclusively the relationship between women and writing from various aspects, such as women's image, writing tradition, wring type, diction, self-awareness and androgyny vision. This paper discusses Virginia Woolf's feminist literary theory, with an analysis of its historical background, main contents, basic features and the influence on the feminist literary theory of Anglo-American and French schools. The paper holds the view that the connotation of Virginia Woolf's theory is rich and profound, is a product of its contemporary spirits, and lays a good foundation for the birth and development of later feminist literary theory. To research on Virginia Woolf's feminist literary theory and conclude systematically can help us grasp generally the development and transition of feminist literary theory and then to have a better understanding of feminist literature creation and writing.