Thomas Rice Henn (10 November 1901 – 10 December 1974),
known professionally as T. R. Henn, was an Irish literary critic.
Life
Henn was born in Albert House,
County Sligo
County Sligo ( , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region and is part of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in ...
, Ireland, and educated in Fermoy and latterly at
Aldenham School
Aldenham School is a co-educational private boarding and day school for pupils aged eleven to eighteen, located between Elstree and the village of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, England. There is also a preparatory school for pupils from the ag ...
, before gaining an Exhibition to
St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he studied the Modern Languages and English
triposes and was elected Fellow in 1926. He was Senior Tutor, 1945–47, and President, 1951–61.
He served in the British army in the Second World War, rising to the rank of Brigadier. He served from 1963 to 1968 as Chairman of the Central Organisation of Military Education Committees of the Universities and University Colleges, what is now the
(COMEC). ''The Lonely Tower'' (1950) was a study of
W.B. Yeats; he edited ''The Plays And Poems of
J. M. Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, essayist, and collector of folklores. As an important driving force behind the Irish Literary Renaissanc ...
'' in 1963, and embarked on the Coole edition of the works of
Lady Gregory
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrot ...
with
Colin Smythe, as joint General Editor of the Edition.
He gave the 1965
Warton Lecture on English Poetry.
He supervised the Ph. D theses of
Harivansh Rai Bachchan and
David Esterly on W. B. Yeats.
Works
Henn's works were:
*''Longinus and English Criticism'' (1934)
*''Field Sports In Shakespeare'' (1934)
*''The Lonely Tower: Studies in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats'' (1950)
*''Practical Fly-Tying'' (1950)
*''The Apple and the Spectroscope: Being lectures on poetry designed (in the main) for science students'' (1951/1963)
*''The Harvest Of Tragedy'' (1956)
*''Selected Poems'' (1958)
*''Science In Writing'' (1960)
*''Passages For Divine Reading'' (1963)
*''The Plays And Poems of J. M. Synge'' (ed, 1963)
*''Shooting a Bat and other poems'' (1964)
*''W.B. Yeats and the Poetry of War'' (1965), reproduction of Henn's Warton Lecture
*''Kipling'' (1967)
*''The Bible as Literature'' (1970)
*''The Living Image: Shakespeare Essays'' (1972)
*''Introduction to Lady Gregory's Poets and Dreamers'' (1974)
*''Last Essays: Mainly on Anglo-Irish Literature'' (1976)
*''Introduction to George Moore's The Untilled Field'' (1976)
*''Five Arches: A Sketch for an Autobiography, and 'Philoctetes' and Other Poems'' (1980)
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henn, Thomas Rice
Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
English literary critics
Fellows of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
1901 births
1974 deaths
Shakespearean scholars
People educated at Aldenham School
20th-century Irish poets