John Nash Douglas Bush (1896–1983) was a literary critic and literary historian. He taught for most of his life at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, where his students included many of the most prominent scholars, writers, and academics of several generations, including Walter Jackson Bate,

Neil Rudenstine Neil Leon Rudenstine (born January 21, 1935) is an American scholar, educator, and administrator. He served as president of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001. Early life and education Rudenstine was born in Danbury, Connecticut, the son of M ...

Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include '' The New York Trilogy'' (1987), '' Moon Palace'' (1989), '' The Music of Chance'' (1990), '' The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The ...

and

Aharon Lichtenstein Aharon Lichtenstein (May 23, 1933 – April 20, 2015) was a noted Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva. He was an authority in Jewish law (''Halakha''). Biography Aharon Lichtenstein was born to Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Lichtenstein and Bluma née Schwartz ...

. Students from the 60's report that Bush would sometimes speak in

decasyllable Decasyllable (Italian: ''decasillabo'', French: ''décasyllabe'', Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual ...

s, so that it was hard to tell where his recitation of Milton left off and where his commentary began. Bush's

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and John Milton was widely influential. His ''English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century'' remains a standard reference work. He received his doctorate from

in 1923.

Major works

*''The Renaissance and English Humanism'' (1939) *''English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, 1600-1660'' (1st ed. 1945, 2d ed. 1962) *''Classical Influences in Renaissance Literature'' (1952) *''Prefaces to Renaissance Literature'' (1965) *''Engaged and Disengaged'' (1966)

Editions

* John Keats. ''Selected Poems and Letters'' (1959) *John Milton. ''The Complete Poetical Works'' (1965) *''A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton." Volume I: The Latin and Greek Poems (1970)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, Douglas __NOTOC__ 1896 births 1983 deaths Harvard University faculty American literary critics Harvard University alumni Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy