Madeleine Kathryn Doran (August 12, 1905 – October 19, 1996) was an American literary critic and poet who taught at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

from 1935 until her retirement in 1975. Born in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, Doran graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in 1927. She received her M.A. from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

in 1928, and her Ph.D. in 1930 from Stanford. She joined the English department at the University of Wisconsin in 1935, and was made a full professor in 1952. Doran's work combined historical and formalist impulses. Her most famous work, ''Endeavors of Art'', analyzed

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

aesthetic treatises as a route to understanding the dramaturgy of Elizabethan playwrights. ''Endeavors of Art'' also helped define the relative weight and significance of classical, Italian, and English influences on the drama. The work, as Doran explains, "is an attempt to reconstruct some part of the context of ideas, assumptions, and predispositions about literary art in which

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 his fellow English dramatists, at the height of their country's

, must have worked, and to suggest ways in which these things may have helped shape their art."Madeleine Doran, ''Endeavors of Art,'' Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1954; pp. 3. Doran also published ''Shakespeare's Dramatic Language'', a collection of critical essays, in 1976. She edited '' A Midsummer Night's Dream'' for Pelican Shakespeare and

Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece '' A Woman Killed with Kindness'', ...

's '' If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody'' for the

Malone Society The Malone Society is a British-based text publication and general scholarly society devoted to the study of 16th- and early 17th-century drama. It publishes editions of plays from manuscript, facsimile editions of printed and manuscript plays of ...

. An early monograph arguing that the difference between the

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

and

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

versions of ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...

'' indicated authorial revision was largely unpersuasive when it appeared in the 1930s; however, the argument was taken up by later critics and has proved influential in recent critical and editorial practice. Doran was also a poet. Her volumes are a collection of essays, ''Something About Swans'' (1973) and ''Time's Foot'' (1974); the latter volume won the Banta Award of the Wisconsin Library Association. She was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1972.

References

1905 births 1996 deaths Place of death missing Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Writers from Salt Lake City Stanford University alumni University of Iowa alumni {{US-English-academic-bio-stub