We are very sad to share news of the passing of Sandra Gilbert, Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at UC Davis. Gilbert was a prolific literary critic, poet, memoirist, editor and teacher.
Gilbert began teaching at UC Davis in the mid-1970s, already having published more than forty poems and essays as well as Acts of Attention, a highly respected book on D. H. Lawrence's poetry.
In 1979, Gilbert and Susan Gubar co-authored The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, which received much critical acclaim. The book has become a classic of feminist literary criticism and was followed by several other works co-authored with Gubar, Distinguished Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University, including a monumental three-volume study of 20th century women’s writing, No Man’s Land (1988-1994); the academic spoof Masterpiece Theatre (1995); and most recently Still Mad (2021), on contemporary feminist writing. Together they also edited The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985), now in its third edition, and Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism (2007).
After her retirement from Davis, Gilbert took several visiting positions, including as the inaugural M. H. Abrams Distinguished Professor at Cornell in 2006. She received honorary degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2004 and Harvard University in 2017. Other honors included fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Soros foundations, and several awards for her poetry, including the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian-American Foundation. In 2012 she and Susan Gubar received the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.
Gilbert was the author of eight books of poetry, most published by W.W. Norton: In the Fourth World (1979), Emily’s Bread (1984), Blood Pressure (1989), Ghost Volcano (1997), Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems (2000), Belongings (2006), Aftermath (2011), and Judgment Day (2018). She also published several books of memoir and criticism, including Wrongful Death: A Medical Tragedy (1995), an account of her husband Elliot Gilbert’s death after surgery in 1991; Death’s Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve (2006); and The Culinary Imagination: From Myth to Modernity (2014). In addition, she edited an anthology of poetic elegies, Inventions of Farewell (2001), and co-edited with Roger J. Porter Eating Words: A Norton Anthology of Food Writing (2015).
Sandra Gilbert will be remembered by those who knew her for her passion for literature, music, travel, food and wine; for her fierce commitments to gender equality and other causes; for her devotion to her family, friends, and students; and for her largeness of spirit, which showed itself in every aspect of her life. Though she was perhaps best known for her critical writing, which left a lasting mark on the field of literary studies, she considered herself as much a poet as a scholar. In her later years she met regularly with fellow poets to share and discuss their work. Reflecting on her complementary vocations, she once said “I see myself as a poet, critic, and a feminist, hoping each ‘self’ enriches the others. As a poet, however, I’m superstitious about becoming too self-conscious; as a critic, I want to stay close to the sources of poetry; as a feminist, I try to keep my priorities clear without sermonizing.”
A celebration of Sandra Gilbert’s extraordinary life and career is being planned. Contributions in her honor can be sent to Emily’s List and NOW.
Editor's note: This article was adapted with permission from Gilbert's obituary in "Berkeleyside." Read the full article here. An obituary was also published in "The New York Times" and "The Guardian."