54 pages • 1 hour read
Sandra Gilbert, Susan GubarThe Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Preface-IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
The Preface to the first edition of The Madwoman in the Attic contains a brief explanation of the guiding principles of the book. The authors, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, identify one key discovery: that the women writers of the 19th century who best represent the literary female history of this time period were all “literally and figuratively confined” in physical and artistic spaces created by men (xi). As Gilbert and Gubar examine this confinement in closer detail, patterns of images and conflicts emerge, and these patterns form the basis of their literary analysis throughout the book’s essays. Another trait that the women writers of the 19th century share is the need to break free from this state of captivity “through strategic redefinitions of self, art, and society” (xii).
Gilbert and Gubar credit social historians and feminist literary critics for their important work around women’s history and literature, all of which informs The Madwoman in the Attic. Thanks to these scholarly advances, the relationship between women’s writing and “male metaphors” is clearer, and Gilbert and Gubar acknowledge that the connections between experience and metaphor, action and reaction are important to the understanding of women writers like Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Emily Dickinson.
Introduction Summary
The Introduction to the second edition of the book contains a written dialogue between the two authors. As Gilbert and Gubar take turns discussing various topics related to their literary studies, they examine their early careers, the reasons behind their selection of the 19th century as their focus, and contemporary issues around feminism and literary scholarship.
When Gilbert and Gubar met in the fall of 1973, they were both professors of English at Indiana University. They bonded quickly: Both women are from New York City, and they both felt out of place in Bloomington; as well, neither could relate to the pressure to be productive that characterized the atmosphere of the English department. Gilbert explains that her family was accustomed to living on either the West Coast, in California, or the East Coast, in New York. The decision to team-teach the senior seminar course on which The Madwoman is based enabled Gilbert to travel to see her family, who had returned to their home in Berkeley, California, a year after Gilbert began teaching at Indiana.
Both Gilbert and Gubar describe the 1970s as a period of “revisionary transport,” a state of exciting transformation for feminists who believed in the adage that the personal was indeed political. They enjoyed countless conversations about the insights they both made into various works of literature by women authors and poets, connecting them all together into a “newly defined context of a female literary tradition” (xxi). Gilbert and Gubar acknowledge that their experiences with motherhood, a female act of physical creativity, influenced their studies on artistic creativity. A loving discussion of the inspiration both women experienced through their children and their mothers demonstrates the deeply personal nature of their work and their passion for their subject.
Gilbert’s expertise in the literature of the 20th century and Gubar’s expertise in the literature of the 18th century gave them a unique collaborative opportunity to explore the proverbial before and after; though their interests began elsewhere, the 19th century offered the scholars titles by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and others that were the “major texts that we now understood to have constituted us as female readers” (xxvii). Gilbert and Gubar acknowledge the women writers of earlier centuries, honoring their contributions to the Western canon, while pointing out that the rebellious and politically minded women of the Romantic movement in America and Britain give “special urgency” to the study of the 19th century.
Since the publication of The Madwoman, which was met by dramatic reactions of all sorts, the study of literature and literary theory has changed dramatically, widening the platform on which scholars place their interpretations and contexts of literary works. Postcolonial studies, queer theory, and other sophisticated approaches to literary exploration compete with philosophical rejections of the notion of essentialism; the study of writers as “originators of meaning” is less popular now, replaced by a focus on politics. Gilbert acknowledges that The Madwoman received and continues to receive negative responses from antifeminists, feminists, and postfeminists, a phenomenon enhanced by information technology. On a positive note, The Madwoman has proven to be popular amongst non-academic readers, suggesting that the book may not be as “theoretically sophisticated and specialized as some of its granddaughters” (xlii). Gilbert and Gubar conclude their discussion with a wish for their feminist successors: They hope these critics will also see significant change in their fields of study and that their futures will be brightened rather than diminished by the daunting tasks that face them.
Preface-Introduction Analysis
A deeply personal tone characterizes both the Preface to the first edition of The Madwoman and the Introduction to the second edition, “slated for The Madwoman’s twenty-first birthday, her coming of age” (xlv), by Yale University Press. Gilbert and Gubar write openly of their own feelings and experiences as professors, mothers, wives, and daughters, revealing a depth of sympathy and emotion perhaps unexpected for a work of literary criticism. They describe even their attachment to the writers they examine in The Madwoman in personal terms; as both Gilbert and Gubar read Austen and the Brontës as young women, they enjoy a kind of closeness with these writers that lends their discussion a friendly, collegial air.
Because Gilbert and Gubar identify with the late 1960s and 1970s movement of second-wave feminism, the personal revelations of these early sections of the book are not completely surprising. Second-wave feminism is credited with the expression “the personal is political,” and this principle guides much of the scholarly investigation that takes place in the essays the book comprises. Gilbert and Gubar emphasize the relevance of their academic goals with the discussion of the impact of their professional goals on their families; thanks to the support of their husbands and children, Gilbert and Gubar, and their students and readers, are able to enjoy the freedom to study, to teach, and to write. From a critical point of view, Gilbert and Gubar understand the personal lives of writers like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters to have been key to the literature they created. Women writers of the 19th century lived within patriarchal confines, and it was from this state of confinement that they sought personal and artistic freedom.
While discussing the advancements in literary theory since the publication of their book in 1979, Gilbert and Gubar express appreciation, curiosity and criticism. In particular, they appear pleasantly surprised by the popular success of their book. The authors also acknowledge that though The Madwoman marks a turning point in feminist literary and continues to be a foundational work, contemporary readers and students may view some of its ideas as outdated or limited in its scope. Gilbert and Gubar appear comfortable with this logical response to their writing, but they are less comfortable with what they perceive to be a growing reliance on opaque theoretical jargon and “political grandstanding.”
