Caroline Spurgeon – Wikipedia

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Caroline Francis Eleanor Spurgeon (Born October 24, 1869 in India, † October 24, 1942 in Tucson, Arizona) was an English literary scholar (English), known for her work on Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare. She was the first professor at an English university.

Spurgeon was born in India as the daughter of a British officer (Captain Christopher Spurgeon). Her mother died at her birth, the father five years later. She spent her youth in France and Germany. Spurgeon visited the Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire and studied at the University of Dresden, Kings College in London and the University College London (where she was Morley Midalist). She prepared for exams of the “Oxford Honors School of English Language” “”, which she completed in 1899 with top marks [first] . From 1900 she taught English literature at evening schools in London, where in 1901 she was the Faculty of Bedford College [2] the University of London as an assistant lecturer (assistant lecturer). In 1906 she became a lecturer for English literature and 1913 to 1929 Professor (Hildred Carlile Chair) for English literature (the first professor at a University of London and in general at an English university [3] ) and chair of the faculty. In 1911 she received the doctorate under Émile Legouis in 1911 at the Sorbonne in Paris for “ChauCer Devant La Critique en Anglertre et en france de Temps Jusqu’a nos jours” (Paris 1911), on which she had worked for a decade. It was not until 1929 in England a doctor in literature-from the University of London for “Five Hundred Years of ChauCer Criticism and Allusion 1357-1900” (Cambridge University Press 1925). In 1913 her book “Mysticism in English Literature” was published by Cambridge University Press. In 1916 she became “Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature”.

In 1918 she was in an exchange program of the “British Education Board” in the USA, where she was Virginia Gilersleeve (1877-1965) [4] Bet, then Dean of Barnard College from Columbia University in New York, with which she from then on connected a lifelong friendship. They regularly spent the summer in the downs, where they bought a country house near Alciston in 1925, and autumn in New York, where she was in 1920/2 visiting professor at Columbia University. The Freundeskreis also included Meta Tuke, Dean of Bedford College, and Lilian Clapham, a high -ranking state officer. In 1936, Spurgeon moved into the dry climate of Tucson in Arizona because of her arthritis, where she died in 1942. In addition to her close girlfriend, the Lilian Clapham, who died in 1935, Caroline Spurgeon was buried in Alciston.

Spurgeon is primarily known for her book “Shakespeares Imagery and what it Tells us” published in 1935 at Cambridge University Press, which was created after ten years of preparation [5] And in which she examines the use of visual metaphors in Shakespeare’s pieces in detail and tries to draw conclusions about his biography and person. They point to her on a rural background and not to an academic or court environment. This part of her investigation had also been the subject of criticism that it would overdo these conclusions in a naive way; Sometimes it was also mocked that she would read the image of a Victorian gentleman in Shakespeare. [6] Spurgeon shows how individual dramas are dominated by certain image motifs and also publishes clear differences in the use of metaphors to authors such as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and Francis Bacon (who was the subject of the William-Shakespeare-Urhierbungschmatte in the 19th century).

From 1920 to 1921 Spurgeon was the first president of the International Federation of University Women, which she founded with Gilersleeve.

  • My way of work (1929), in: Elga Kern (ed.): Leading women in Europe , Munich 1999 [1928], pp. 88–92
  1. ↑ Women were not allowed to study in Oxford at the time
  2. ↑ A college for women. The University of London was one of the first in England where women could study.
  3. ↑ Who was Virginia Gildersleeve? (No longer available online.) Ifuw, archived from Original am October 24, 2013 ; accessed on May 23, 2013 . Info: The archive link has been used automatically and not yet checked. Please check original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. @first @2 Template: Webachiv/Iabot/www.ifuw.org Template: Cite Web/Temporary
  4. ↑ She is known to write the United Nations’ preamble as the only female member of the US Delegation in San Francisco in 1945. Thanks for the Roosevelt campaign support.
  5. ↑ She previously published “Leading Motifes in the Imagery of Shakespeares Tragedies”, London 1930 and “Shakespeare’s Iterative Imagery”, London 1931
  6. ↑ RENE WEEKEK: “Stories the literature Indication 1750-1950”, Grupyer publisher, BD. 4, p. 160.