Kenneth Arthur Muir (5 May 1907 – 30 September 1996) was a twentieth-century literary scholar and author, prominent in the fields of
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
studies and
English Renaissance theatreEnglish Renaissance theatre, also called early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, that occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
. He served as King Alfred Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University from 1951 to 1974.
Muir edited volumes 19 through 33 of the
Shakespeare Survey, and served as chairman of the International Shakespeare Association.
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Kenneth Arthur Muir (5 May 1907 – 30 September 1996) was a twentieth-century literary scholar and author, prominent in the fields of
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
studies and
English Renaissance theatreEnglish Renaissance theatre, also called early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, that occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
. He served as King Alfred Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University from 1951 to 1974.
Muir edited volumes 19 through 33 of the
Shakespeare Survey, and served as chairman of the International Shakespeare Association. He authored and edited a wide range of scholarly articles and books — primarily on Shakespeare and other Elizabethans, but also on various other subjects, including
John KeatsJohn Keats was an English poet, who became one of the key figures of the Romantic movement. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Keats was one of the second generation Romantic poets...
,
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
, and
Pedro Calderon de la BarcaPedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age.-Biography:...
. He edited modern texts of many classic plays of the English Renaissance, including
OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
, MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth, commonly just Macbeth, is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, Troilus and CressidaTroilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. The play is not a conventional tragedy, since its protagonist does not die. The play ends instead on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between...
, and
Richard IIKing Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
. He also edited the collected poems of Sir
Thomas WyattThomas Wyatt may refer to:* Thomas Wyatt , English poet* Thomas Wyatt the younger , rebel leader* Thomas Henry Wyatt , British architect...
.
Muir is vulnerable to confusion with other authors with very similar names:
John Kenneth MuirJohn Kenneth Muir is an American literary critic. He has written twenty-one reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular accent on the horror and science fiction genres...
, Kenneth B. Muir, Kenneth R. Muir, and Kenneth W. Muir.
Selected works of Kenneth Muir
- Elizabethan Lyrics: A Critical Anthology (1952).
- John Milton (1955).
- Jean Racine (1960).
- Shakespeare as Collaborator (1960).
- Last Periods of Shakespeare, Racine, Ibsen (1961).
- The Voyage to Illyria (with Sean O'Loughlin, 1970).
- A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies (1971, with Samuel Schoenbaum
Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
)
- The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (1977).
- Shakespeare's Sonnets (1979).
- Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence (1979).
- Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto, (1981, with Michael J. B. Allen).
See also
- Joseph Quincy Adams
Joseph Quincy Adams, Jr. was a prominent Shakespeare scholar and the first director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C....
- G. E. Bentley
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- E. K. Chambers
Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
- R. W. Chambers
Raymond Wilson Chambers was a British literary scholar, author, and academic; throughout his career he was associated with University College London .-Life:...
- W. W. Greg
Sir Walter Wilson Greg was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century.Greg was born at Wimbledon Common in 1875. His father, William Rathbone Greg, was an essayist; his mother was the daughter of James Wilson...
- Andrew Gurr
Andrew John Gurr is a contemporary literary scholar who specializes in William Shakespeare and English Renaissance theatre.-Life and work:...
- Alfred Harbage
Alfred Bennett Harbage was an influential Shakespeare scholar of the mid-20th century. He was born in Philadelphia and received his undergraduate degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured on Shakespeare both there and at Columbia before becoming a professor at Harvard...
- Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy is a contemporary literary scholar who has taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and is currently the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
- T. M. Parrott
Thomas Marc Parrott was a prominent twentieth-century American literary scholar, long a member of the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey....
- Alfred W. Pollard
Alfred William Pollard was an English bibliographer, widely credited for bringing a higher level of scholarly rigor to the study of Shakespearean texts....
- Samuel Schoenbaum
Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
- E. M. Thompson
- Charles William Wallace
Charles William Wallace was an American scholar and researcher, famed for his discoveries in the field of English Renaissance theatre.Wallace was born in Hopkins, Missouri to Thomas Dickay Wallace and Olive McEwen...
- John Dover Wilson