Alastair David Shaw Fowler

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FBA (1930 – 9 October 2022) was a Scottish literary critic, editor, and an authority on Edmund Spenser, Renaissance literature, genre theory, and numerology.

Life and career

Alastair Fowler was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1930. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, M.A. (1952). He was subsequently awarded an M.A. (1955), D.Phil. (1957) and D.Litt. (1962) from Oxford. As a graduate student at Oxford, Fowler studied with

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univer ...

, and later edited Lewis's ''Spenser's Images of Life''. Fowler was a junior research fellow at Queen's College, Oxford (1955–1959). He also taught at Swansea (1959–1961), and

Brasenose College Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...

, Oxford (1962–1971). He was Regius Professor of literature at the University of Edinburgh (1972–1984) and also taught intermittently at universities in the United States, including Columbia (1964) and the University of Virginia (1969, 1979, 1985–1998). He delivered the 1980 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. Known for his editorial work, Fowler's edition of John Milton's ''Paradise Lost'', part of the Longman poets series, has some of the most scholarly and detailed notes on the poem and is widely cited by Milton scholars. Writing in ''The Guardian'', John Mullan called it "a monument of scholarship." Fowler was critical of some later trends in literary scholarship, including "new historicism". In 2005, he published an extremely critical review of Stephen Greenblatt's ''Will in the World'', which was widely discussed. Fowler was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to literature and education. His papers are on deposit at the

National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in th ...

. Fowler died on 9 October 2022, at the age of 92.

Work

Edited volumes

* C. S. Lewis, ''Spenser's Images of Life'', 1967 * John Milton, ''Paradise Lost'', 1968, revised edition 2006 * ''Silent Poetry: Essays in Numerological Analysis'', 1970 * ''Topics in Criticism'', ed., with

Christopher Butler Christopher Butler (7 May 1902 – 20 September 1986), born Basil Butler, was a convert from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church, a Bishop, a scholar, and a Benedictine Monk. After his Solemn Profession as a Monk and his Ord ...

, 1971 * ''The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse'', 1991, 2008 * ''The Country House Poem'', 1994.

Authored volumes (criticism)

* ''Spenser and the Numbers of Time'', 1964. * ''Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry'', 1970 * ''Conceitful Thought: Interpretation of English Renaissance Poems'', 1975 * ''Kinds of Literature'', 1982. * ''A History of English Literature'', 1987 * ''Times Purple Masquers: Stars and the Afterlife in Renaissance English Literature'', 1996 * ''Renaissance Realism'', 2003 * ''How to Write'', 2006 * ''Literary Names: Personal Names in English Literature'', 2012

Authored volumes (poetry)

* ''Seventeen'', 1971 * ''Catacomb Suburb'', 1976 * ''From the Domain of Arnheim'', 1982 * ''Helen's Topless Towers'', 1993

Reviews

* Craig, Cairns (1982), ''Giving Speech to the Silent'', which includes a review of ''From the Domain of Arnheim'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''

Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...

'' No. 10, Autumn 1982, pp. 43 & 44,

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Alastair 1930 births 2022 deaths Scottish literary critics Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Academy People from Glasgow