The authors of this book draw on feminist ideas and discuss the importance of feminist scholarship in developing an approach to literature that focuses on gender. The volume covers all three major literary genres - prose fiction, poetry and drama (including performance) - and examines a wide range of themes, including: * the conflict between feminity' and creativity in women's lives and writing * the construction of female characters * autobiography and fiction * the gendering of language * spheres of influence among women writers * the importance of a room of one's own' * the intersection of race, class and gender within writing, reading and interpretation. Literature and Gender discusses a range of poetry by women and men, and works of fiction by Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jamaica Kincaid, Virginia Woolf, Susan Glaspell, Caryl Churchill, Alice Walker and Henrik Ibsen. A selection of key critical texts is included from the work of Maya Angelou, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, Toni Morrison and Elaine Showlater. No other book on this subject provides an anthology, introduction and critical reader in one volume. Literature and Gender is the ideal guide for any student new to this field, and for readers with a general interest in writing by and about women.