I sit here stunned.  I had no idea Janet was ill.  A world without her in
it--how?

She was second reader for my dissertation--though to look at the voluminous
comments she made, one would have thought she was directing it.  She had the
inimitable ability to inspire awe and affection at the same time, and I
swear her very presence in a room could heal wounds even while she was
basically telling me that what I had just written was a load of crap.

Her literary essays are models of clarity and insight that continue to
inform my lectures.  It will be strange and passing strange from now on to
hear her voice as I lecture but know I can no longer talk to her directly.

Dot

-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Heather James
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 11:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Janet Adelman

Dear Colleagues,

I write with great sadness to report that Janet Adelman - who might be
called one of the great feminist readers of Shakespeare, or one of the great
psychoanalytic readers of Shakespeare, but who would more rightly be called
one of the truly great readers of her generation - died of lung cancer
yesterday morning.  I know many of you already have heard this sad news,
which seems to me to suggest a gap in nature.  But I know that those of you
fortunate enough to have heard her talk on Book I of The Faerie Queene at
the Spenser Luncheon a few short years ago know that the loss counts for all
of us, not only those of us who count ourselves as Shakespeareans.  (And on
that score, is there any other name that appears in the suggested
bibliographies with such frequency?)

Janet was my thesis director, a scholar I had not met on the UC-Berkeley
campus until after I had finished an astonishing amount of coursework (it
doesn't do to remember just how many years of our youth was required by Comp
Lit).  I heard her give the Gayley lecture on Richard Crookback, and had for
the first time a feeling that was often to have when I heard her speak
afterwards:  not, "that's brilliant," or "just great," which of course it
was, but "Oh, that's _right_."  Followed by, "I have to take a course from
that woman."   I wrote a dissertation with her guidance;  and at no time did
she urge me to be a "mini-me."  She was generous, exacting, rigorous, and,
always, right.  

She wrote a book called Suffocating Mothers.  I don't believe she struggled
even once to keep on her side of the professional bargain (and her avocation
as a mother of real sons is legendary).  My own mother is named Janet, and
it never seemed relevant to dwell on it.  No jokes about the reign of two
Janets.  My favorite moment came when I decided to hole up with a chapter,
on Troilus and Cressida, and think of it as an awkward thing to have to
write.  I happened to run into Janet on the Berkeley campus after about six
weeks, and the location was Sather Gate.  She spotted me, floated from one
side of the gate to the other, kissed one cheek and said, "Heather!  Why
don't you bring me a chapter?"  She kissed the other cheek, and she floated
off to Wheeler Hall.  I went home and wrote the chapter.  She kissed it out
of me.  

Heather