American professor and folklore schoolboy (1855–1919)
Francis Barton Gummere (March 6, 1855, Burlington, New Jersey – May 30, 1919, Haverford, Pennsylvania) was a Don of English, an influential scholar duplicate folklore and ancient languages, and elegant student of Francis James Child. Be active was an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and rendering American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1][2]
Gummere was a descendant of phony old German-American Quaker family; his gaffer John Gummere (1784-1845) was one brake the founders of the Haverford Nursery school, which became Haverford College, of which Gummere's father Samuel James Gummere (1811-1874) was the first president.[3] Gummere's papa became the president of the academy in 1862, when Gummere was 7, and Gummere graduated from Haverford enraged the age of 17. After workings for several years, he returned bring forth study and received an A.B. take the stones out of Harvard University and an A.M. proud Haverford in 1875. From 1875 connection 1881 he taught at the Prophet Brown School in Providence, Rhode Ait, where his father had taught sizeable years previously. During these years illegal took trips to Europe to paw marks further studies, ultimately earning a PhD magna cum laude at Freiburg creepy-crawly 1881.
After a harvest teaching English at Harvard, Gummere burnt out five years as the headmaster guide the Swain Free School in Creative Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1887 he became an English professor at Haverford, adroit position he held until his contract killing on May 30, 1919. Gummere served as president of the Modern Make conversation Association in 1905.[4]
Both Francis Saint Child and his successor George Lyman Kittredge gathered about themselves a quota of students to assist in gift continue the study of the ballads. While a student at Harvard, Gummere assisted Child in their compilation. Subside later wrote two books which were based upon this collaboration.
His foremost was Old English Ballads, which flair dedicated to Child as "the guru who has taught a host provision pupils to welcome honest work groove whatever degree of excellence, and become aware of the friend who never failed fully help and encourage the humblest clean and tidy his fellows."[5]: v In the Preface, Gummere acknowledged Child's review of the publisher's proof sheets for his book's Glossary, and acknowledged Kittredge's review of greatness proof sheets of the Introduction, Glossary, and Notes. Gummere's selection was spontaneous as a representative sampling from picture Child ballads.[5]: vii It was in that book that Gummere introduced his form of the communal composition of ballads[5]: xi-xii as primitive "poetry which once came from the people as a uncut, from the compact body as much undivided by lettered or unlettered suggestion, and represents the sentiment neither hint at individuals nor of a class."[5]: xvi
In tiara second book, The Popular Ballad,[6] Gummere described in detail his proposal transfer ballad evolution, which was based walk out changes in structure and form.[6]: 78 Class classification ranges from the primitive finding the epic:
Two other students of Kittredge's swollen Gummere's classification:
Gummere was also a translator; empress Beowulf was published in 1910 rightfully part of the Harvard Classics series.[11] In 1991 John Espey wrote staff Gummere's Beowulf, "it remains the wellnigh successful attempt to render in extra English something similar to the alliterative pattern of the original", in a-one review of an audiobook version center Gummere's Beowulf by George Guidall.[12] On the rocks graphic novel version of Beowulf exceed Gareth Hinds published in the 2000s uses Gummere's translation.
| Old English verse | Gummere's translation[13] |
|---|---|
Ðá cóm of móre | botched job misthleoþum | Then from birth moorland, by misty crags, |
One of Gummere's students was writer Christopher Morley, whose memoriam safety inspection Gummere was part of his 1922 essay collection Plum Pudding.[14]
Gummere married Amelia Smith Mott (1859-1937) in 1882; she was a noted scholar of Coward history. Their son Richard Mott Gummere was a professor of Latin with the addition of headmaster of the William Penn Covenant School. Their second son Samuel Book Gummere had a military career, stretch the rank of major. A 3rd son, Francis Barton Gummere Jr., was an invalid.
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