Helen Gardner (critic)

Helen Gardner
Born	Helen Louise Gardner (1908-02-13)13 February 1908
Died	4 June 1986(1986-06-04) (aged 78) Bicester, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Occupation	Professor
Language	English
Nationality	British
Education	North London Collegiate School
Alma mater	St Hilda's College, Oxford
Genre	Literary criticism
Notable works	The New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1950
Notable awards	Order of the British Empire

Dame Helen Louise Gardner, DBE, FBA (13 February 1908 – 4 June 1986) was an English literary critic and academic. Gardner began her teaching career at the University of Birmingham, and from 1966 to 1975 was a Merton Professor of English Literature, the first woman to have that position. 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 published over a dozen books, and received multiple honours.

Her critical stance was traditional and focused on history and biography; it involved the work's historical context, the personal habits of the author, and the relationship of the text to the time period. One of her beliefs was that a literary critic's job is to assist other people in reading for themselves.