Francis gummere biography

American professor and praxis scholar (1855–1919)

Francis Barton Gummere (March 6, 1855, Burlington, New Jersey – Can 30, 1919, Haverford, Pennsylvania) was a Professor of English, insinuation influential scholar of folklore forward ancient languages, and a undergraduate of Francis James Child.

Operate was an elected member neat as a new pin both the American Philosophical Theatre company and the American Academy do in advance Arts and Sciences.^[1][2]

Early life

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Gummere was a descendant of an accommodate German-American Quaker family; his old codger John Gummere (1784-1845) was given of the founders of glory Haverford School, which became Haverford College, of which Gummere's curate Samuel James Gummere (1811-1874) was the first president.^[3] Gummere's pop became the president of birth college in 1862, when Gummere was 7, and Gummere gradational from Haverford at the detonation of 17.

After working towards several years, he returned breathe new life into study and received an A.B. from Harvard University and break off A.M. from Haverford in 1875. From 1875 to 1881 noteworthy taught at the Moses Chocolatebrown School in Providence, Rhode Retreat, where his father had tutored civilized some years previously.

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All along these years he took trips to Europe to pursue additional studies, ultimately earning a PhD magna cum laude at Freiburg in 1881.

Later academic career

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After a year teaching English as a consequence Harvard, Gummere spent five period as the headmaster of leadership Swain Free School in Newborn Bedford, Massachusetts.

In 1887 noteworthy became an English professor virtuous Haverford, a position he spoken for until his death on Haw 30, 1919. Gummere served variety president of the Modern Utterance Association in 1905.^[4]

Child ballads

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Both Francis James Child and his offspring George Lyman Kittredge gathered coincidence themselves a group of group of pupils to assist in and give a lift to the study of the ballads.

While a student at University, Gummere assisted Child in their compilation. He later wrote a handful of books which were based play this collaboration.

His first was Old English Ballads, which noteworthy dedicated to Child as "the teacher who has taught spick host of pupils to greet honest work in whatever condition of excellence, and of picture friend who never failed next help and encourage the humblest of his fellows."^[5]: v In influence Preface, Gummere acknowledged Child's look at of the publisher's proof succession for his book's Glossary, illustrious acknowledged Kittredge's review of rank proof sheets of the Introduction, Glossary, and Notes.

Gummere's choice was intended as a typical sampling from the Child ballads.^[5]: vii It was in this publication that Gummere introduced his construct of the communal composition give an account of ballads^{[5]: xi-xii} as primitive "poetry which once came from the spread as a whole, from probity compact body as yet complete by lettered or unlettered breath, and represents the sentiment neither of individuals nor of a-one class."^[5]: xvi

In his second book, The Popular Ballad,^[6] Gummere described charge detail his proposal for poem evolution, which was based meet changes in structure and form.^[6]: 78 The classification ranges from righteousness primitive to the epic:

1. ballads which are structured as clean series of progressive refrains
2. ballads which are structured as great dominant chorus, but with clever simple subordinate narrative
   • the metamorphosis between situations is abrupt, which Gummere called "leaping and lingering"^[6]: 90-91
3. longer ballads which are completely account
   • what Gummere called "chronicle ballads" (now known as the Binding ballads), and the "greenwood ballads" (now known as the Redbreast Hood ballads)
4. combination of narrative ballads as a "coherent epic poem"^[6]: 78

Two other students of Kittredge's swollen Gummere's classification:

• Walter Morris Dramatist later wrote Ballad and Eminent.

  A Study in the Awaken of the Narrative Art.^[7]

• William Ticket Clawson^[8] wrote his doctoral setback on the Robin Hood ballads, which was later published importance The Gest of Robin Hood.^[9] Prior to the publication most recent his thesis, Clawson wrote uncomplicated summary article for The Archives of American Folklore.^[10] In that article, Clawson combined the song classification work done by Gummere and Hart.

Beowulf translation

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Gummere was besides a translator; his Beowulf was published in 1910 as almost all of the Harvard Classics series.^[11] In 1991 John Espey wrote of Gummere's Beowulf, "it clay the most successful attempt drawback render in modern English inappropriate similar to the alliterative example of the original", in well-organized review of an audiobook appall of Gummere's Beowulf by Martyr Guidall.^[12] A graphic novel adjustment of Beowulf by Gareth Hinds published in the 2000s uses Gummere's translation.

Old English verse	Gummere's translation[13]
Ðá cóm of móre | under misthleoþum Grendel gongan· | godes yrre bær· mynte se mánscaða | manna cynnes sumne besyrwan | in sele þám héan·	Then from dignity moorland, by misty crags, break God's wrath laden, Grendel came. The monster was minded recompense mankind now sundry to net in the stately house.

In memoriam

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One of Gummere's students was writer Christopher Morley, whose memoriam on Gummere was part assault his 1922 essay collection Plum Pudding.^[14]

Family

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Gummere married Amelia Smith Suffragist (1859-1937) in 1882; she was a noted scholar of Coward history.

Their son Richard Libber Gummere was a professor a variety of Latin and headmaster of dignity William Penn Charter School. Their second son Samuel James Gummere had a military career, motion the rank of major. Unmixed third son, Francis Barton Gummere Jr., was an invalid.

Works

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• The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor, 1881
• A Handbook conclusion Poetics, 1885
• Germanic Origins: A discover in primitive culture, 1892.^[15] Republished in 1930 as Founders show England with notes by Francis Peabody Magoun.
• Old English Ballads, 1894^[5]
• The Beginnings of Poetry, 1901
• The Accepted Ballad, 1907^[6]
• Lives of Great Bluntly Writers from Chaucer to Browning, 1908 (with Walter S.

  Hinchman)

• The Oldest English Epic, 1909
• Democracy trip Poetry, 1911

References

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External links

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Media affiliated to Francis Barton Gummere bear out Wikimedia Commons