Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Vendler, Helen [née Hennessy], (1933-2024), academic, writer and literary critic
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Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
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Description area
Dates of existence
30 April 1933 - 23 April 2024
History
Professor Helen Vendler was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities. Her academic focus was critical analysis of poetry and she studied poets from Shakespeare and George Herbert to modern poets such as Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney. Her technique was close reading, which she described as "reading from the point of view of a writer".
She was the Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College from 1994-1995 and was elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1997.
Her portrait, by Mrs Mary Minifie, is the first of a female Fellow to hang in Hall (2024).