Helen Louise Gardner (1908–1986)

Helen Louise Gardner was born in London, England. She attended North London Collegiate School and then Oxford University, where she earned her BA in 1929 and MA in 1935. She became one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. She began her academic career at the University of Birmingham with a temporary post as assistant lecturer from 1930 to 1931. Following three years as an assistant lecturer at Royal Holloway College in London, she returned to Birmingham as a member of the faculty of the English Department. She became a tutor at Oxford in 1941 and was a fellow of her alma mater St. Hilda's College from 1942 to 1966, as well as University Reader in Renaissance English Literature. From 1966 to 1975, Gardner was the Merton Professor of English Literature, the first woman to hold that position, and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. She was best known for her work on the poets John Donne and T.S. Eliot, but also published on John Milton and William Shakespeare. She wrote and edited more than a dozen books, monographs, critical editions, and anthologies that influenced the views of many readers on British poetry, particularly poetry from the late 16th to the early 17th centuries. She was appointed as CBE in 1962 and as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1967. She was elected to the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Literature and in 1971, she was named a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dame Helen's authority is featured in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit.