Gerald Eades Bentley, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Gerald Eades Bentley

American literary critic

Date of Birth: 15-Sep-1901

Place of Birth: Brazil, Indiana, United States

Date of Death: 25-Jul-1994

Profession: journalist, literary critic

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Gerald Eades Bentley

  • Gerald Eades Bentley (September 15, 1901 – July 25, 1994) was an American academic and literary scholar, best remembered for his seven-volume work, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, published by Oxford University Press between 1941 and 1968.
  • That work, modeled on Edmund Kerchever Chambers' classic four-volume The Elizabethan Stage, has itself become a standard and essential reference work on English Renaissance theatre. Bentley was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a Methodist clergyman.
  • Originally intending to be a creative writer, he changed his career to literary scholarship during his graduate studies.
  • He earned his B.A.
  • at DePauw University (1923), his M.A.
  • in English at the University of Illinois (1926), and his Ph.D.
  • at the University of London (1929), studying under Allardyce Nicoll.
  • Bentley taught at the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1945 before accepting a position as Murray Professor of English at Princeton University in 1945, where he served until his retirement in 1970.
  • He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975.In addition to his Jacobean and Caroline Stage, Bentley wrote a wide range of works on Shakespeare and other figures of the English Renaissance.
  • His essay "Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre," originally published in the inaugural issue of the Shakespeare Survey in 1948, has been widely reprinted.
  • Bentley edited several works for modern editions, including Othello, and The Alchemist. In his obituary, the New York Times noted that he raised a literary stir in 1956 when he edited and wrote the preface to a hitherto unknown 1577 text called The Arte of Angling in which he noted several passages that reminded him of Isaac Walton's later The Compleat Angler.
  • The Times quotes D.
  • E.
  • Rhodes, a British authority on fishing literature, who defended Walton, saying, "It seems to me unjust to accuse Izaak Walton of plagiarism, because plagiarism did not exist in the 17th century.
  • All authors of that and earlier ages read what they liked and used what they liked of it without acknowledgment."Bentley was married first to Esther Felt, a significant colleague in his scholarly work, from 1927 until her death in 1961.
  • In 1965, he married Ellen Voigt Stern, who died in 1990.
  • Bentley's son and namesake from his first marriage, Gerald Eades Bentley Jr., became a noted literary scholar in his own right, specializing in the career and works of William Blake.
  • He spent most of his career at the University of Toronto.

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