Helen Gardner (critic) Cambridge offered Gardner the new chair in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, but she declined, in part because she had heard that the university's first choice, C.S. Lewis, had changed his mind about refusing the position. In 1966, she became Merton Professor of English literature in the University of Oxford, the first woman to hold this chair. Her specialist areas were T. S. Eliot, the metaphysical poets, Milton and religious poetry, with many essays published on these subjects, as well as on literary criticism itself. She edited "The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1950" (1972) and "The Metaphysical Poets". She
Peter Craven (literary critic) Heyward with whom he founded "Scripsi", a literary magazine which ran from 1981 to 1994. Peter Craven (literary critic) Peter Craven is an Australian literary critic and cultural studies writer. Craven has written for "The Age", "The Australian" and the "Australian Literary Review". His work has also appeared in "Oxford Guide to Contemporary Writing", the "Times Literary Supplement" and "London Review of Books". Craven has been described as both a "literary hack" and "one of the most prolific, erudite and opinionated voices in Australian literary circles". In 2004 he was awarded the Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year.