Ian Henning (1905–1975) was the second

McCaughey McCaughey is an Irish surname. Spelling variations include: McHaughey, MacCaughey, McGaughey and O'Coffey, among others. Modern spelling comes from the original Mac hEochaidh. The McCaugheys are descendants of the ancient Dál Fiatach dynast ...

Professor of French at the University of Sydney.

Early life and education

Henning was born Ian Allan Ramie Henning on 14 June 1905 in Waverley, New South Wales. His parents were Henry Herbert, an inventor, and Amy Ethel (''née'' Stacey) Henning. Ian Henning studied successively at Bondi Superior Public School, Chatswood Primary School and Sydney Boys’ High School. Completing his Leaving Certificate in 1922, he won a Lithgow Scholarship No. 1 for proficiency in French and German and enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney in the following year. He studied French under Professor G. G. Nicholson and Gladys Marks, and German under the Australian poet, scholar and literary critic Christopher Brennan. In 1926 he was awarded a French Government scholarship and travelled to Paris to undertake postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne. His thesis, supervised by Fernand Baldensperger, was on ''

De l'Allemagne ''On Germany'' (french: De l'Allemagne), also known in English as ''Germany'', is a book about German culture and in particular German Romanticism, written by the French writer Germaine de Staël. It promotes Romantic literature, introducing th ...

'' by

Madame de Staël Madame may refer to: * Madam, civility title or form of address for women, derived from the French * Madam (prostitution), a term for a woman who is engaged in the business of procuring prostitutes, usually the manager of a brothel * ''Madame'' ...

. Having completed a Doctorat de l’

Université de Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

(with a ''mention très honorable''). The thesis was published in 1929 by the Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.Kenneth Dutton
Henning, Ian (1905–1975)
French-Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 21 February 2020.

Academic career

Returning to Australia in 1929, Henning worked for one year as acting lecturer in French at the University of Sydney. When that post came to an end, he applied for a lectureship in French at the

Victoria University College Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

, Wellington, New Zealand. He resigned after two years and returned to Australia to experience a "period of stagnation and contraction during the Depression years",Jim Nicholls
Book Review: Ian Henning (1905-1975): a Man and his Times, by Kenneth R. Dutton, Mount Nebo [Qld]: Boombana Publications, 2002
sydney.edu.au. Retrieved 21 February 2020. during which he survived by working on several occasions as an acting lecturer in French at the University of Sydney. In December 1945 Henning was appointed as the McCaughey Chair of French which Professor G. G. Nicholson had vacated after many years in that position. During the 1950s Henning would periodically take his French teaching to the wider Australian public outside the university walls, such as by offering lectures on French poetry at The Poetry Society and on "aspects of modern language teaching" to the N.S.W. Association of University Women Graduates and staging a "well balanced" production of

Giraudoux Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (; 29 October 1882 – 31 January 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His wo ...

's '' The Trojan War Will Not Take Place''. He retired in December 1970. He was succeeded in the McCaughey Chair by Ross Chambers.Angus Martin
"The Teaching of French at Sydney"
''Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association'', Vol. 14 (1989), p. 49. Retrieved 23 February 2019.

Legacy

Henning found himself professor at a time of "huge expansion of student and staff numbers" in Sydney University's French department. Kenneth Dutton has argued that Henning, although being shy and apparently aloof, was a "full of genuine concern for his students" who formed an entire generation of French scholars", many of whom would later occupy senior positions in universities "in Australia and overseas". Henning is regarded by some as a "clone" of his predecessor, Professor Nicholson. Dutton has claimed that, although Henning continued to insist on translation of a major component of French studies, he did not (unlike Nicholson) see it as a "mental discipline" in which precise expression would lead to precision in thought. For Henning, it was an "exercise in understanding, highlighting through the consideration of various possible translations the very difficulty (...) of expressing ‘exactly’ in one language what has been written in another. While strongly supporting the "end role" of language teaching as the appreciation of great literature, he "believed that such understanding could be based only on mastery of the nuances of the language itself".

Personal life

On 8 November 1946 Henning married Patricia ("Pat") Anne Massie. They had two sons, Robert (born 1949) and Christopher (born 1954). Henning died on 6 October 1975.Kenneth R. Dutton, ''Ian Henning (1905–1975): A man & his times'', Mount Nebo, Boombana Publications, 2002 (The Kelveriana Series), p. 321.

Selected bibliography

Books

* ''L'Allemagne de Madame de Staël et la polémique romantique: première fortune de l'ouvrage en France et en Allemagne (1814-1830)'', Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1929.

Articles

* "George Gibb Nicholson", ''Union Recorder'', Vol. XXIV, No. 2, 17 March 1949, p. 3.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henning, Ian 1905 births 1975 deaths Literary critics of French Academic staff of the University of Sydney University of Sydney alumni University of Paris alumni