The literary landscape of the late 20th century witnessed a significant milestone with the publication of The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Garnering a nomination for the 1979 National Book Critics Circle Award in Literature, the book was lauded by Le Anne Schreiber in The New York Times as a seminal work. While pioneers like Ellen Moers and Elaine Showalter had previously ventured into defining a female literary tradition, Gilbert and Gubar's exploration stood out as a distinctive contribution, largely due to their innovative use of Harold Bloom’s established critical theories.

Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (1973) and A Map of Misreading (1975) provided a foundation that Gilbert and Gubar reinterpreted through a feminist lens. Despite the acclaim, their work did not escape criticism. Some detractors argued that the evidence supporting their theories was occasionally tenuous, suggesting that in their quest to affirm a unified female literary purpose, they might have overlooked the diversity among women writers or the commonalities shared with their male counterparts. Yet, others countered that such ambitious scholarly endeavors are inherently prone to gaps, emphasizing the role of literary theorists to provoke new readings and interpretations of classic texts.

Beyond The Madwoman in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar further cemented their influence through additional collaborative works. They edited The Norton Anthology of Literature of Women: The Tradition in English (1985), marking a significant first for Norton Press. Other notable projects include Shakespeare’s Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets (1979) and The Female Imagination and the Modernist Aesthetic (1986). Their literary journey reached new heights with No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century: Vol. 1, The War of the Words (1988), initiating a comprehensive three-volume study of modern literature through a feminist perspective.

Gilbert and Gubar consistently challenged readers to reengage with literature from a feminist critical perspective, urging a reevaluation of traditional narratives and themes. Critics largely concur that their major achievement in The Madwoman in the Attic is the articulation and revision of uniquely female literary strategies and imagery. Their work invites a deeper understanding of literature, encouraging readers and scholars alike to rethink the paradigms that have long shaped literary criticism.