The 1979 publication of Susan Gubar and Sandra M. Gilbert's ground-breaking study The Madwoman in the Attic marked a founding moment in feminist literary history as much as feminist literary theory. In their extensive study of nineteenth-century women's writing, Gubar and Gilbert offer radical re-readings of Jane Austen, the Brontës, Emily Dickinson, George Eliot and Mary Shelley tracing a distinctive female literary tradition and female literary aesthetic. Gubar and Gilbert raise questions about canonisation that continue to resonate today, and model the revolutionary importance of re-reading influential texts that may seem all too familiar

Rebecca Pohl is the co-editor of Rupert Thomson: Critical Essays (2016) and has published on contemporary women's writing, gender, and feminist theory. Her work in progress includes a manuscript that examines the impact of gender on mid-century experimental writing by women in Britain. She also regularly speaks at public events on the topics of women's writing and gender, and sexuality. Pohl is Honorary Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Manchester, Associate Lecturer at Goldsmiths University London, and a contemporary literature supervisor at the University of Cambridge.

Ways in to the Text

Who are Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar?

What does The Madwoman in the Attic Say?

Why does The Madwoman in the Attic Matter?

Section 1: Influences

Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context

Module 2: Academic Context

Module 3: The Problem

Module 4: The Author's Contribution

Section 2: Ideas

Module 5: Main Ideas

Module 6: Secondary Ideas

Module 7: Achievement

Module 8: Place in the Author's Work

Section 3: Impact

Module 9: The First Responses

Module 10: The Evolving Debate

Module 11: Impact and Influence Today

Module 12: Where Next?

Glossary of Terms

People Mentioned in the Text

Works Cited