The Madwoman in the Attic

TLDR: Gilbert and Gubar's multi-volume history of women in literature began in 1980 with the publication of The Madwoman in the Attic as discussed by the authors, followed by No Man's Land: The Place of Women Writers in the 20th Century (1988).

Abstract: Gilbert and Gubar's multi-volume history of women in literature began in 1980 with the publication of The Madwoman in the Attic. It was followed by No Man's Land: The Place of Women Writers in the 20th Century (1988). Gilbert and Gubar's books were the first to review in a complete way the place of women both as literary figures and as writers. Drawing on the work of Harold Bloom regarding poetic identity, they argued that women could not become writers and assume a writer's identity until they found appropriate models for themselves in the tradition. Given the way women were represented, that was a difficult task at best. Their argument in this selection is that even the positive images of wpmen in literature express negative energies and desires on the part of male writers.