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.

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.

[1] Gardner's teaching career began at the University of Birmingham, where she held a temporary post as an assistant lecturer from 1930 to 1931.

After three years as an assistant lecturer at Royal Holloway College in London, she returned to Birmingham, as a member of the English department (1934–41).

From 1966 to 1975, Gardner was the Merton Professor of English Literature, the first woman to have that position, and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

[4] Her critical methodology included the work's historical context, the personal habits of the author, and the relationship of the text to the time period.

She prepared several editions of poetry by John Donne, including The Divine Poems (1952), Selected Prose (1967) and The Elegies and the Songs of Sonnets (1965), all of which attracted commendation for her careful work.

[1] In 1979, when she delivered the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (published as In Defence of the Imagination) Gardner said that she opposed the then-current trend of literary criticism to over-interpreting texts and using technical jargon.