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The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

Sandra M. Gilbert,

Susan Gubar

4.19 · Rating details · 3,333 ratings · 130 reviews

An analysis of Victorian women writers, this pathbreaking book of feminist literary criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual."

Contents:
The Queen's looking glass: female creativity, ...more

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Paperback, Second Edition, 768 pages

Published July 11th 2000 by Yale University Press (first published 1979)

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Apr 01, 2012 Rachel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tutsi-fruitsi, nonfiction, the-victorians, jane-austen-and-adjacent

Have you ever been bothered by that host of angelically drippy Dickensian heroines? Been more satisfied by the sassy alternatives offered by Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet, but couldn’t pin down exactly why? Wondered what the hell is up with Wuthering Heights? Thought Eve was shafted?

Well, act now to order your official Madwoman-in-the-Attic Goggles. Put them on, and literature will never look the same.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but there has been this confining social dichotomy that women Have you ever been bothered by that host of angelically drippy Dickensian heroines? Been more satisfied by the sassy alternatives offered by Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet, but couldn’t pin down exactly why? Wondered what the hell is up with Wuthering Heights? Thought Eve was shafted?

Well, act now to order your official Madwoman-in-the-Attic Goggles. Put them on, and literature will never look the same.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but there has been this confining social dichotomy that women are either angels or monsters. Madonnas or whores. Yeah, you know the drill. So, through deep readings of the texts and experiences of nineteenth-century female authors writing in English, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar identify a pervasive set of images and structures employed by women writers coping with this dichotomy. I’m talking really, eerily pervasive. Over and over again, the authors trace the complexities of how these women enact fragmented selves on the page. Their various coping mechanisms, though, give their literature its complex architecture, built from affirmations of dominant social roles, the aching renunciation of Christina Rossetti, the dignified rebellion of Jane Eyre and the raving rebellion of her mad double(?) in the attic, marriages of equals, accommodations, all culminating in that nuanced explosion of an Emily Dickinson tackling everything-all-at-once.

Though a lot of this wasn’t a surprise, watching the sad, dark, self-denying compromises and mental hell some of these nineteenth-century women writers twisted through was more painful than I expected. Thank you, being alive in 2012.

Speaking of 2012, you should know that this is some early feminist literary criticism, here. It can be crude, but analyzing these texts as not merely by authors, but by women authors, is not an irrelevant exercise. Gilbert and Gubar’s taxonomy is so clear and the patterns so convincingly pervasive, that they provide a handy lens through which to read books by men and women; books steeped in the dominant paradigms or reacting against them. True story: I had read, liked, and gone home satisfied from The Painted Veil just a couple of weeks before reading this. After I slipped on my Madwoman Goggles, the themes, imagery, even the title of that whole book went right into focus with an audible click.

Yes, the book is flawed. The authors often charge off on elaborate interpretative tangents beyond what the texts can solidly support. There is a strong streak of under-nuanced 1970s feminism. Plus, their exclusive focus on upper-class women in Britain and the US leaves us wondering about contemporaneous writers confined in Other-ness by virtue of class, sexuality, national origin, or anything else outside of the white, bearded Protestant patriarchy. But you know what? Damn -- their taxonomy is enlightening. Damn -- those tangents are lyrical. Damn -- this book must have burst on the lit-crit scene like a veil-rending, mansion-torching mad double of its own. And you know what else?? Damn -- those Madwoman Goggles are scarily relevant to so very, very many modern books.

Guaranteed. Or your money back.

This book pairs well with: every book ever, but especially tasty with Milton (hissssss), Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, the sisters Brönte, Jane Austen, Ma Mary Wollstencroft and daughter Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Simone de Beauvoir and George Eliot.
...more

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May 13, 2014 Zanna rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminism

The imagination of the title is the boundary of Gilbert and Gubar's reflections, and some qualifications might be added to define the limits and orientation of that imagination, such as whiteness and the English language. All of the women writers they discuss as foremothers and proponents of a specifically female literary culture are white and either English or USian (correct me if I err). Of course it is necessary to have a focus, to delineate a subject for enquiry, but it is important to note The imagination of the title is the boundary of Gilbert and Gubar's reflections, and some qualifications might be added to define the limits and orientation of that imagination, such as whiteness and the English language. All of the women writers they discuss as foremothers and proponents of a specifically female literary culture are white and either English or USian (correct me if I err). Of course it is necessary to have a focus, to delineate a subject for enquiry, but it is important to note that we are not only examining white material but examining it through whiteness, thus Gilbert and Gubar's feminist readings make seemingly uncritical use of the 'dark' Other against whom white women are defined:

Bertha is Jane's truest and darkest double: she is the angry aspect of the orphan child, the ferocious secret self Jane has been trying to repress... 'The novelist who exploits psychological Doubles juxtaposes two characters, the one representing the socially acceptable or conventional personality, the other externalising the free, uninhibited, often criminal self'

Apart from a parenthetical remark about Betha's origin/colour, discussion of the issue of race does not enter this section at all. The very title of the book thus finally serves to erase race as a feminist concern, since the figure of the madwoman in the attic, a direct reference to the character (in Jane Eyre) of Bertha Mason, who is black, is made to stand for a group of white British and USian writers, who in turn represent women in general as maddened by the circumstances of the period.

Another trope discussed at length is the aesthetic, often fetishised illness and feebleness of the nineteenth century young woman both in life and literature, but the authors miss the fact that this effectively disabled body is a white body specifically defined against the able, fertile, working body of the black woman, a distinction that enables the denial of femininity/womanhood/humanity to black women.

In their excited introduction to this edition, the authors acknowledge rather than answer the critique of their work from this kind of angle by Gayatri Spivak. My intention is not to castigate them or to warn folks off this impressive and enjoyable book! But I do want to suggest that there is a lot of decolonisation left undone for the reader to be aware of...

Because really, you wouldn't want to miss out on reading this, if you've ever read Austen, Eliot, Emily Dickinson or the Brontes. Especially if you've ever watched an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and thought oh no, no, no! It really isn't all about the desirability of a rich and handsome young man! There's so much more to it. Because Gilbert and Gubar have carefully excavated and investigated the so-much-more of the great women writers of the so-called golden age, revealing explicit and latent themes that speak to feminist consciousness.

Their approach is to 'trust the tale not the teller' in reading feminist meanings into characters and interactions, but their discoveries never feel arbitrary and in general I found them convincing, even where they evidently disagreed with other critics. Their method is close reading, generally working text by text, but also interlinking to flesh out an image of each author's (often changing and evolving) sensibilities and concerns. The personal is hugely important to them, and the preliminary discussion of women's anxiety merely about merely assuming the heavily male-defined mantle of author is crucial for all of the writers they discuss. There is much biographical content, and an air of empathy that only strengthens the overall impression of rigour. Comparative comments seem rare to me, and I appreciated them as treats:

Every negative stereotype protested by Charlotte Bronte is transformed into a virtue by George Eliot. While Bronte curses the fact than women are denied intellectual development, Eliot admits the terrible effects of this malnourishment but also implies that emotional life is thereby enriched for women. While Bronte shows how difficult it is for women to be assertive, Eliot dramatises the virtues of a uniquely female culture based on supportive camaraderie instead of masculine competition. While Bronte dramatises the suffocating sense of imprisonment born of female confinement, Eliot celebrates the ingenuity of women whose love can make "one little room, an everywhere." And while Bronte envies men the freedom of their authority, Eliot argues that such authority actually keeps men from experiencing their own physical and psychic authenticity.

I also enjoyed the highly imaginative and poetic discussion of weaving, sewing and embroidery, presented in the concluding chapters on Emily Dickinson, but relevant to other authors too. I came back to this exploration when reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Carson McCullers describes men knitting and sewing in different contexts, and I saw this as part of her disruptive re/unwriting of gender. The men in question have characteristics that might be seen as wifely or feminine (cooking daily for another man, design skill, attention to detail, pleasure in homemaking and beauty, desire to care for children) and their weaving-work draws attention to these attributes.

References to classical mythology abound, but the authors constantly look beyond simplistic parallels and look for half-submerged layers of meaning that often seem to have been deliberately veiled (veiling is another theme afforded scrutiny) by the authors under discussion. The tradition Gilbert and Gubar claim to have defined and traced seems to have this rather coy mode of concealment as a key tenet.

Perhaps the most affecting passage, for me, is their comparison of Emily Dickinson with her contemporary, Walt Whitman, foregrounding again female anxiety of authorship, about taking up space

As most readers know, the cornerstone of Whitman's epic meditation is a powerful assertion of identity now entitled 'Song of Myself' and in that first edition [of Leaves of Grass, published 1855] called 'Walt Whitman'. Because the 1st edition appeared without its author's name on the title page, some critics have spoken of the work's near 'anonymity', and perhaps, by comparison with those later editions... which were decorated not only with the poet's name and photograph but with facsimilies of his signature, this early version was unusually reticent. But of course what was modesty for Whitman would have been mad self-assertion for Dickinson [...] He didn't need to put his name on the title page because he and his poem were coextensive...

Whitman's expansive lines, moreover, continually and swaggeringly declared the enormity of his cosmic/prophetic powers. 'I celebrate myself and sing myself' his poem begins magisterially, 'and what I assume, you shall assume' promising in bardic self-confidence that if you 'stop this day and night with me... you shall possess the origin of all poems.' While Dickinson, the 'slightest in the House,' reconciles herself to being Nobody, Whitman genially enquires 'Do I contradict myself?/Very well then, I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes).' While Dickinson trembles in her room, with the door just ajar, Whitman cries 'Unscrew the locks from the doors!/ Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!'

Next time I find myself folded up on the tube between men seated legs so far akimbo they block my path I shall remember Emily and Walt, and push back. ...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Stela rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Stela by: Carmen Irimia

Shelves: reviews, criticism-literary-theory

I keep thinking that feminism (or every other political or social movement by the way) is a narrow path to follow in a literary analysis. As part of a thorough study, literature is an interesting enough source of feminist examples, and Simone de Beauvoir used it brilliantly in The Second Sex, but the reverse is not equally advisable.

For, in my opinion, The Madwoman in the Attic forces, like Procust once upon a time, an entire literature written by 19th century women to sleep in the bed of the ...more

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Apr 04, 2017 Tamara Agha-Jaffar rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, books-i-ve-reviewed, 2017-reading-challenge, 2017-women, feminism, owned-books, non-fiction

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination forges a ground-breaking contribution to feminist literary criticism. In this study, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue for the existence of a distinctly female literary imagination in women writers of nineteenth-century. Their landmark study has influenced how we read women writers ever since.

Gilbert and Gubar systematically deconstruct the obstacles women authors faced and how their struggles are The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination forges a ground-breaking contribution to feminist literary criticism. In this study, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue for the existence of a distinctly female literary imagination in women writers of nineteenth-century. Their landmark study has influenced how we read women writers ever since.

Gilbert and Gubar systematically deconstruct the obstacles women authors faced and how their struggles are manifested in their works, beginning with the fundamental perception that literary authorship was perceived as an exclusively male activity, a patriarchal endeavor, bestowing ownership and authority on the work. As such, it not only excluded women from authorship, it asserted that women who were authors defied their essential nature, i.e. they were being “unfeminine.” Unlike their male counterparts who suffered from an “anxiety of influence,” women authors suffered from an “anxiety of authorship.”

Among the many patriarchal constructs inhibiting women’s writing were the stereotypical depictions of her as either angel or monster; the circumscribed space she was forced to inhabit in society; her limited sphere of permissible activities; the plethora of literary texts saturated with male hegemony and female subordination; the misogyny of Milton’s Paradise Lost; the trap of “feminine” roles in patriarchal homes; the deliberate malnourishment for her writing; the assumption of a vapid intellectual life; and the interiorization of her as Other.

Through their brilliant analysis of the writings of such authors as Jane Austen, Christina Rossetti, the Brontë sisters, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and through references to numerous others, Gilbert and Gubar demonstrate the strategies for artistic survival women developed to counteract these crippling constructs.

Comprehensive in scope, the study weaves the author’s biography with detailed textual analysis and discussion of her work to show how her thoughts evolved and in what ways and to what degree she was able to counteract patriarchal constructs. By interpreting the literature through the “mad woman” lens, Gilbert and Gubar open the literary work to subtleties and nuances, revealing sub-merged layers of meaning that may otherwise have been overlooked.

This is a fascinating study, a consummate tome of feminist literary criticism, and so well deserving of the high praise it has received. It is highly recommended as a valuable resource for students of Victorian women writers and for the readers who love to immerse themselves in the literary masterpieces they crafted. ...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Amanda May rated it really liked it

This is what my thesis adviser has called the quintessential text about Victorian women writers, and I find that statement to be absolutely true. Gilbert and Gubar begin with a generalized argument that women writers have a counterpart to the masculine "anxiety of influence" discussed by Harold Bloom. Instead, women undergo an "anxiety of authorship" because unlike male writers, women have no predecessors to emulate. Instead, women, particularly nineteenth century female writers, tended to This is what my thesis adviser has called the quintessential text about Victorian women writers, and I find that statement to be absolutely true. Gilbert and Gubar begin with a generalized argument that women writers have a counterpart to the masculine "anxiety of influence" discussed by Harold Bloom. Instead, women undergo an "anxiety of authorship" because unlike male writers, women have no predecessors to emulate. Instead, women, particularly nineteenth century female writers, tended to modify or rewrite masculine discourse in order to make it their own, particularly Milton.

Much of the book, however, is focused on the identity of the female writer. Women writers were "monsters" and "madwomen" in that they were not entirely traditional; they were attempting to enter a sphere that had been dominated mainly by males. Gilbert and Gubar argue that women writers were forced to create double, duplicitous, or even multifarious identities to sustain the traditional female roles of mother, wife, and daughter while at the same time what was traditionally a masculine role. This identity crisis was reflected in their writing. Although the first few chapters of the book lay a general foundation, more author/work-specific chapters focus on Milton's masculine mythology and how it was modified by women writers like Mary Shelley, Jane Austen's novels, Charlotte Brontë's novels, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, George Eliot's novels, and the verse of Emily Dickinson, among others.

Despite the fact that I was forced to reduce this masterpiece to about 9 pages of potentially useful information, most of which will probably wind up as footnotes in my thesis, I found the text both well-written and enjoyable. I am only sorry I was unable to extract more useful information from it, as the authors I am using (Gaskell, Anne Brontë, and Braddon) were mentioned in passing (if at all). Nonetheless, I found this to be a very valuable resource, one that is not only over-brimming with essential information about canonical Victorian women but also accessible and engaging. If working with Victorian women, particularly the identity of Victorian women, whether that be the authors, their narrators/protagonists, or their verse, this is a must-read.
...more

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Feb 26, 2015 Liz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: feminism, non-fiction, for-university

Brilliant.

Although I did not always agree the authors or saw where they were going and why it was certainly...enlightening. A great piece of feminist criticism that is very useful when you study Literature and constantly have to write term papers. Many secondary sources refer to Gilbert & Gubar's "Madwoman" and it was interesting to see and understand why exactly it is perceived as such an important piece.

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Aug 27, 2008 Sarah rated it really liked it

Recommended to Sarah by: school Assignment

The Madwoman in the Attic The Madwoman in the Attic struck one of the first blows for feminist literary criticism and a uniquely female literary tradition. It's near and dear to my heart because it's the first extended lit-crit I've ever read, and also because it's about my favorite bunch of novels: Victorian (well, 19th century) women's fiction. There's also an awesome section on Victorian poetry. Hellooo, Goblin Market!

The basic theory of the book is that women writers twisted the ...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Abby rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, feminism, pulitzer, lit-theory

“Is a pen a metaphorical penis?”

Thus begins, rather perfectly, this seminal (oblique phallic pun alert!) work in feminist literary theory.

I wish I’d read this during my senior year in college, when I was writing my thesis on Woolf and her portrayal of women artists; I’d have been utterly riveted. (In fact, I’m somewhat surprised my thesis adviser didn’t encourage me to read this book for general context, as important as it is.) So, yes, this tome marks a very important moment in feminist lit ...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Leslee Friedman rated it it was amazing

I know this is considered passe by most of the lit crit set, particularly post-colonial theorists. That said, it changed my life. And I really think that it's one of the best places a girl can start reading about feminist theory, even if she leaves behind this school of thinking later. If nothing else, the first essay in the book is worth a read.

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Mar 04, 2015 Lukas Evan rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminism, crit-theory

Somehow I missed out on feminist literary criticism during my undergraduate English classes.

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Feb 11, 2017 Petra rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-nonfiction

This book has been on my TBR for a while after it has been recommended in so many lectures. And no wonder because this book was incredibly detailed account on the most important women writes in 19th century UK and America. I felt a bit underwhelmed at some points but I think it was more because I am not very well known with the theories the book discussed than that this was a badly written book. Having read most of the novels that were discussed in the book, this opened the whole new view of ...more

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Nov 23, 2018 Kathleen Flynn added it

Shelves: bronte-businesss

Once cutting edge, now a classic, a monument of feminist literary criticism that still holds up despite the many things that have happened since in the world and in academia. Took me months to read this, skipping around and between different other things, but it was fantastic!

The Wuthering Heights chapter is especially fascinating. And I am always up for a new excuse to think about Middlemarch, and of course, Jane Austen.

I am also now inspired to continue with Paradise Lost and to look anew at ...more

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May 02, 2014 Ann-Cathrine (Literamour) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: feminism, favourites

Wow! No wonder this is a crucial text in literary feminism. It covers a massive amount of works by 19th century English and American female writers with traces up to Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.
I have discovered gems through this book which I had previously avoided or not found interesting (Little Women) as well as developing a deeper appreciation for the Brontë's, whose works I did not enjoy reading but I acknowledge their deep impact upon the literary world - and even more so now. in fact, ...more

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Jun 20, 2016 Carol Douglas rated it it was amazing

I just re-read this important book on nineteenth-century women writers. It's so beautifully written and full of interesting analysis that I can hardly do justice to it.
Nineteenth-century women wrote in a world steeped in even more male bias than women face today. They "told all the truth but told it slant," as Emily Dickenson said. Even, no especially, Jane Austen's work was full of complaints about men's belittling women and control of what was deemed "literature."
There are illuminating ...more

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Mar 19, 2009 Stephanie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-books-about-books

I've been reading this for some time, and decided to go back to it after reading Showalter's new book. I don't always agree with the authors, but generally find their analysis thought-provoking.

Update: well, I've finished, and as mentioned before, I read this over a long period of time and in some cases came back to it because I read the work in question (I reread Wuthering Heights and The Goblin Market both last year). In other cases, I wish I'd read the work more recently (as with Shirley and ...more

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Jul 09, 2011 Kari rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: journalism-essays-criticism

This was a fascinating read and gave me a deeper insight into some of my favourite pieces of nineteenth century literature. Gilbert and Gubar explore in detail the work of a wide variety of authors such as Austen, the Bronte's, Eliot, Dickinson, Rossetti, and Shelley. It's a huge tome of a book so does require a bit of a commitment to reading it, but I believe it is thoroughly worth it. It was a ground breaking book for feminist criticism at the time and will inform and influence the way in ...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Carla Remy rated it liked it

Shelves: 19th-century-lit, words-and-writing

I thought I liked seminal 1970s feminist literary criticism, but it was too much. I mean, if you haven't just read the books they're covering it's hard to follow. I've read "frankenstein" - 20 years ago. I've read all the Austen novels, but at least a decade ago. I can't recall every character, every nuance. So this just made me feel it was time to do some re-reading. I was looking forward to the "wuthering heights" chapter, and it was good, but it helps that I've read WH 4 times. I gave up ...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Jake rated it really liked it

The 600+ page tome of dense literary criticism is not for the lighthearted and, to be honest, I would not recommend reading it straight through. Gilbert and Gubar fail to deliver on their promised thesis of the overarching theme of angel versus monster in texts written by female authors in the nineteenth century.

That said, if you've read the books they're discussing, it can be fascinating. My favorite parts by far were the take down of the Snow White tale and the chapters on Wuthering Heights, ...more

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Aug 26, 2007 Amy rated it it was amazing

I took a Female Gothic course in Scotland one year, and this book became my Bible. It was chock full of information about novels written by females in the nineteenth-century. However, that just scratches the surface as Madwoman also rebels against the phallocentric standards that existed in the time of the great female authors such as Bronte, Austen, Shelley, etc.

Gilbert and Gubar have done amazing jobs analyzing and critiquing the Gothic novels and exploring the madwomen that exist within not ...more

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Jan 06, 2015 Brenda Clough rated it it was amazing

An excellent book, full of insight! You do have to know the works in question. Luckily the volume is divided out more or less by the books analyzed, so you can skip the George Eliot section if you haven't read MIDDLEMARCH.
I was thrilled by the analysis of JANE EYRE, and can see why this was seminal.

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Oct 11, 2008 Dana Stabenow rated it it was amazing

Where does feminist literature come from? There was a there there.

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Jun 07, 2013 Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american-authors-translators, my-western-canon, british-literature, poet-emily-dickinson, author-elizabeth-gaskell, author-george-eliot, historical-fiction, literary-criticism, the-brontes, american-literature

This is an absolutely indispensable and priceless book. You can skip about and fall in love with each and every chapter in this book! So incredibly enlightening. Gilbert is brilliant!

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Apr 17, 2015 Sue Davis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-theory, nineteenth-century, academic, feminism

Really helpful for understanding Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre

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May 08, 2011 Quirkyreader rated it it was amazing

See my review on my book blog: http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/2...

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Jan 15, 2017 Lorraine rated it it was amazing

I just finished The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. I skimmed small sections of this book for my MA thesis but in no way read the text (which is highly unfortunate because I think that ultimately, G&G's methodology is probably superior to what I used of Elaine Showalter's at a critical juncture, but that's neither here nor there). This book was published in 1979, which is significant for me because that's the year in which I was born. I have a profound respect for ...more

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Sep 08, 2018 Emily rated it really liked it

Shelves: candidacy-exam-books

I'm really glad that I finally got around to reading this in its entirety as it's such a key text for feminist criticism, literary criticism, and just 20th century criticism overall. I had no qualms with the way it was written, other than being slightly confused during close readings of texts I've yet to read (which is no issue with the writing but with my own lack of knowledge). My major criticism is that the analyses of "madness" were entirely social/figurative, but this just points to how ...more

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Mar 02, 2014 Ruth rated it it was amazing

I read bits of this classic tome of 70's feminist criticism over the years, but this time I read a little bit over breakfast each day until I'd read it cover-to-cover. Now it's falling apart and I have to get some strong tape to reattach the cover. And I miss my breakfast ritual so much. It brought me back to that time years ago when the parts about Milton & Frankenstein blew my mind, but also gave me some new things to think about in the Charlotte Bronte section, since I'm always thinking ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Charlotte Hall rated it it was amazing

pg 336-371. Used for feminist analysis of Jane Eyre. Facinating read. From what I have read, this is a must read for anyone with an incline to want to analyse texts. The way it has highlighted and enhanced Jane Eyre as a read,for me,is marvelous. The fact we are doing feminism as coursework is a blessing as its such an important topic and this really gripped onto the aspects of Jane Eyre percieved that way.Will mostly refer to it once I have read more texts the book refers to, as I would feel it ...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Deborah Biancotti rated it it was amazing

Shelves: writer-women, books-i-read-at-uni, non-fic

By far my favourite piece of criticism from my Uni days, Gilber & Gubar were full of radical suggestions. For example, their analysis of FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley posed the question, 'why should a book by a woman feature so few women characters?' Answer: because, they argued, the ability of the male characters to give life to each other (& take life away) implied that they were, in fact, stand-in women. Love it!

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Dec 06, 2009 Christine Taylor rated it it was amazing

I recently re-read this book so that I could use a few chapters in one of my literature courses. I read the first edition while studying in university; and I must say that I appreciate the study even more now. Gilbert and Gubar use clear metaphors to draw comparisons to women's authorship in a non-accepting literary community. This text is a must-read for anyone studying literature.

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About Sandra M. Gilbert

Sandra M. Gilbert

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Sandra M. Gilbert is the author of numerous volumes of criticism and poetry, as well as a memoir. She is coeditor (with Susan Gubar) of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. A Distinguished Professor of English emerita at the University of California, Davis, she lives in Berkeley, California.

Books by Sandra M. Gilbert

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, Vol. 2

Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, Volume 1

Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve

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“A life of feminine submission, of 'contemplative purity,' is a life of silence, a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story.” — 9 likes

“A life of feminine submission, of 'contemplative purity,' a life of silence, a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story.” — 2 likes

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Preview — The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

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Preview — The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Sandra M. Gilbert

Books by Sandra M. Gilbert

Trivia About The Madwoman in t...

Quotes from The Madwoman in t...

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