Sandra M. Gilbert
Sandra M. Gilbert is a prominent poet and literary critic, born Sandra Ellen Mortola in New York City in 1936. Her educational journey included prestigious institutions such as Cornell University, New York University, and Columbia University. Gilbert's significant contributions to feminist literary criticism were developed in collaboration with Susan Gubar, beginning in the mid-1970s, during their time at Indiana University. Together, they produced influential works like "The Madwoman in the Attic" and the three-volume series "No Man's Land," which explore the intersection of gender, literature, and cultural identity, reshaping the landscape of literary criticism.
Beyond their collaborative efforts, Gilbert has published both nonfiction and poetry, frequently addressing themes of loss, particularly in the wake of her husband's untimely death. Her notable works include "Wrongful Death," which examines medical malpractice, and "Kissing the Bread," which received an American Book Award. Throughout her career, Gilbert has garnered numerous accolades, including a National Book Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement. Additionally, she has held leadership roles, such as the presidency of the Modern Language Association. As of early 2023, Gilbert continues to be a significant figure in literature, with a family that includes three children and four grandchildren.
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Subject Terms
Sandra M. Gilbert
Writer
- Born: December 27, 1936
- Birthplace: New York, New York
Author Profile
Writer. Sandra M. Gilbert, a poet and literary critic, was born Sandra Ellen Mortola in New York City in 1936. She was educated at Cornell University, New York University, and Columbia University. She has taught at numerous colleges and universities, including Indiana University, Princeton University, and the University of California, Davis. Gilbert and Susan Gubar began collaborating on feminist literary criticism in the mid-1970s while both taught at Indiana University. Each had previously published extensively, but their discussions led them to new discoveries about literature. The excitement generated by their joint exploration of the subject matter is evident throughout the volumes they have produced as a team, which include The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (1979); Shakespeare’s Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets (editors, 1979); the three-volume No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, 1988–1994 (1988–94); The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English (editors, 1985); The Female Imagination and the Modernist Aesthetic (editors, 1986); Masterpiece Theatre: An Academic Melodrama (1995); and Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader (2007). In 2011 Gilbert published Rereading Women: Thirty Years of Exploring Our Literary Traditions.
After Gilbert left Indiana in 1975, she and Gubar continued working together through phone calls and extensive travel. The focus in their writing on women writers’ sense of identity reflects the women’s movement’s attempts to redefine women’s place in society. Gilbert and Gubar’s persuasive arguments that literary works reflect the time and culture in which they are written, as well as the gender of the author, helped to revolutionize literary criticism. Many previous critical schools treated works of literature as timeless monuments to human greatness. Gilbert and Gubar’s collaborative method embodies the ideal of solidarity between women, which is central to the women’s movement.
In addition to works on feminist literary criticism and women writers, Gilbert has published other nonfiction as well as poetry. Loss is a common theme in Gilbert’s work. In the aftermath of the unexpected death of her husband of thirty-three years, Elliot L. Gilbert, she wrote Wrongful Death: A Medical Tragedy (1995), which presents the details of her own family’s experience along with considerable research about medical malpractice, and a volume of poetry, Ghost Volcano (1995), which is dedicated to her husband’s memory. In 2000 Gilbert published another volume of poetry, Kissing the Bread, which won an American Book Award. She is the recipient of many other honors, including a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, Guggenheim fellowship, and a Rockefeller fellowship. In 2014 she published The Culinary Imagination: From Myth to Modernity, in which she explores the cultural meaning of food.
Among many other awards, Glibert was the co-winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2017, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of law from Harvard. She served as president of the Modern Language Association for several years. In early 2023, she had three children, four grandchildren, and spent her time in California and France.
Bibliography
"Biography: Sandra M. Gilbert." Sandra Gilbert, www.sandramgilbert.com. Accessed 28 Apr. 2023.
Cain, William E., ed. Making Feminist History: The Literary Scholarship of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Garland, 1994.
Gilbert, Sandra M. “A Conversation with Sandra M. Gilbert.” Interview by Garrett Hongo and Catherine Parke. The Missouri-Review, vol. 9, no. 3, 1986, pp. 8–109. doi.org/10.1353/mis.1986.0004. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.
Gilbert, Sandra M. “Interview with Sandra (Mortola) Gilbert.” By Christina Bevilacqua. American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana’s Best Writings on Women, Fordham UP, 2011, pp. 240–249. doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823231751.003.0024. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.
Griffiths, Sarah, and Kevin Kehrwald, eds. Delicious Imaginations: Conversations with Contemporary Writers. Purdue UP, 1998.
Storace, Patricia. “Seduced by the Food on Your Plate.” New York Rev. of Books, 18 Dec. 2014, www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/12/18/seduced-food-your-plate. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.