She graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA and MA in 1946, and from Yale University with a Ph.D. in 1956. In 1959, she became the first woman to teach in the English Department at Yale, and in 1965 was the first woman appointed to be a professor of English. She retired in 1994.

She was one of the first two women to be granted tenure in any department in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and in 1991 she became the first woman on the faculty ever to be named a Sterling Professor, the highest honor bestowed on Yale faculty.

An Endowed Chair at Yale has been named for her.