Mary Ellmann

Mary Ellmann (née Donoghue) (1921–1989) was an American writer and literary critic. Journals in which she wrote included The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Encounter, The Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, The New Republic, the New Statesman and The American Scholar. Her 1969 book, Thinking About Women is called one of the significant texts in early feminist theory. Her career was cut short by illness and death.

Literary criticism

Ellmann is particularly noted for her book of essays, Thinking About Women (1968), which discusses the evolution of the representation of femininity in British and American literature, exhibiting sexual analogies and stereotypes from the texts and contrasting criticism by male and female authors. The literary historian Mary Eagleton cited Ellmann's book as one of two "significant texts" in early feminist theory. The work has been widely cited for its introduction of the concept "phallic criticism" as applied to writers of both sexes. In a review of academic studies of gender, Mary Poovey described Thinking About Women as an example of the "earliest U.S. incarnation" of feminist literary criticism, which, "with the excitement of pioneers discovering virgin territory... helped make writing about women academically acceptable."

Personal life

Ellmann was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Massachusetts and Yale University, receiving a PhD in English from Yale. In 1949, she married the literary critic Richard Ellmann. The couple had three children, Stephen, Maud, and Lucy.

In December 1969, Ellmann suffered a cerebral hemorrhage leaving her unable to walk for the rest of her life. She died from a second hemorrhage on June 3, 1989, in Oxford, England.

Publications

• Mary Ellmann, Thinking About Women (New York: Harcourt, 1968).

References

• Obituary (1989), "Mary Ellmann, Literary Critic, Dies at 68", The New York Times, June 4
• Eagleton, Mary (1996). "Who's Who and Where's Where: Constructing Feminist Literary Studies". Feminist Review (53): 1–23. doi:10.2307/1395659. JSTOR 1395659.
• Leader, Zachary (2025), Ellmann's Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker, Harvard University Press.
• Robinson, Lillian S. (1983). "Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 2 (1): 83–98. doi:10.2307/464208. JSTOR 464208.
• Poovey, Mary (1991). "Recent Studies of Gender". Modern Philology. 88 (4): 415–420. doi:10.1086/391893. JSTOR 438268. S2CID 164179628.
• Stevenson, Elzabeth (1 March 1969), "Sex and Sensibility (Review)", Commentary, 47 (3): 86
• Tuttle, Lisa (1986), Encyclopedia of Feminism, Longmans, ISBN 0-582-89346-1
• Barker, Nicolas (2014). "Richard Ellmann 1918–1987" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. XIII: 187–188.

External links

• Mary Ellmann, WorldCat Authority Page.