Abrams

Gilbert

Renowned literary scholar and Cornell professor emeritus of English M.H. Abrams will inaugurate a visiting professorship named in his honor, in a joint lecture with Sandra M. Gilbert '57, the professorship's first appointee.

Gilbert, a literary critic from the University of California-Davis, studied with Abrams as an undergraduate at Cornell. As the M.H. Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor, she will speak on "Finding Atlantis: Thirty Years of Exploring Women's Literary Traditions," Jan. 29 at 4:30 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall's Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium. Abrams' lecture is titled "On Reading Poetry Aloud." The event is free and open to the public.

Abrams came to Cornell in 1945 and spent his entire career here. He was a founder of the A.D. White Center for the Humanities (now the Society for the Humanities) and a longtime supporter of the University Library. One of the most distinguished American critics of the 20th century, his well-known works include "The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition" (1953); he also conceived "The Norton Anthology of English Literature," which he has edited for more than 40 years and is now in its seventh edition.

In 1999, "The Mirror and the Lamp" was ranked 25th on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best nonfiction books written in English during the preceding century. Abrams also won the James Russell Lowell Prize in 1972 for his book "Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature."

Gilbert is a pioneer of feminist criticism and gender studies who has followed Abrams' formidable example. She has written seven volumes of poetry, including "Belongings" (2005), and the recent critical work "Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Way We Grieve Now." Her works as co-author and editor (with Susan Gubar) include "The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination" (1976); "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women," now in its third edition; the three-volume "No Man's Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the 20th Century"; and a new anthology, "The Norton Reader in Feminist Criticism and Theory."

The Cornell Department of English established the visiting professorship with a gift to the department in Abrams' honor from Stephen H. Weiss '57, chairman emeritus of the Cornell Board of Trustees. The professorship celebrates Abrams' contributions to Cornell and the field of English studies by inviting distinguished scholars to teach and interact with students and faculty.