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Frank Kermode

Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010[1][2][3]) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing.

He was the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University.


Kermode was known for many works of criticism, and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to modern thinkers. He was a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.

Early life and education[edit]

Kermode was born on the Isle of Man, the only son and elder child of John Pritchard Kermode (1894–1966) and Doris Pearl (1893–1967), née Kennedy. His father was a delivery truck driver and warehouseman for a ferry company, and his mother, a "farm girl", had been a waitress. The family was of "extremely modest means", and "struggled to maintain a respectable yet always precarious standard of life". The Kermode family- which according to Kermode's reminiscences had "some kind of Welsh connection"- had in previous generations been somewhat more comfortable financially; Kermode's grandfather was an organist, and his grandmother, who remarried as a widow, came to own an off-licence/ general store. Her new husband "staged a robbery of the shop and stole the stock and... she went bankrupt". Kermode's father, on returning from serving in the First World War, finding there now to be no family business, "took temporary jobs and then got what he thought was a job that would see him through, as a storekeeper and he stayed in that for the rest of his career". Kermode's father retired after the Second World War, both he and his wife coming to be in poor health; Kermode's mother suffered from dementia, and his father was "an extreme diabetic", dying from diabetes while resident in a retirement home.[4][5] Kermode, having come first in the examinations allowing attendance,[4] was educated at Douglas High School for Boys[6] and the University of Liverpool. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, for six years in total, much of it in Iceland.

Career[edit]

He began his academic career as a lecturer at King's College, Durham University, in 1947. He later taught at the University of Reading from 1949, where he produced the Arden edition of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He held professorships at the University of Manchester (1958) and the University of Bristol (1965), before being appointed to the Lord Northcliffe chair at University College London (UCL) in 1967. Under Kermode, the UCL English Department chaired a series of graduate seminars which broke new ground by introducing for the first time contemporary French critical theory to Britain.[1]


Kermode was a contributor for several years to the literary and political magazine Encounter and in 1965 became co-editor. He resigned within two years, once it became clear that the magazine was funded by the CIA.[1]


In 1974, Kermode took the position of King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University. He resigned the post in 1982, at least in part because of the acrimonious tenure debate surrounding Colin MacCabe. He then moved to Columbia University, where he was Julian Clarence Levi Professor Emeritus in the Humanities. In 1975–76 he held the Norton Lectureship at Harvard University.[1]

Lecturer, (1947–49)

University of Durham

Lecturer, (1949–58)

University of Reading

John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature, (1958–65)

University of Manchester

Winterstoke Professor of English, (1965–67)

University of Bristol

Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature, (1967–74)

University College London

Honorary Fellow, (1996–2010)

University College London

University of Cambridge (1974–82)

King Edward VII Professor of English Literature

Fellow, (1974–87)

King's College, Cambridge

Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, (1977–78)

Harvard University

Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities, (1982–84)

Columbia University

Honorary Fellow, King's College, Cambridge (1988–2010)

English Pastoral Poetry from the Beginnings to Marvell, (1952), Life, Literature and Thought Library, Harrap,  0-393-00612-3, OCLC 230064261

ISBN

The Arden Edition of the Works of William Shakespeare: The Tempest (1954) London: Methuen, OCLC 479707500

Seventeenth Century Songs, now first printed from a Bodleian manuscript (1956), ed. with John P. Cutts. Reading University School of Art, OCLC 185784945

John Donne (1957), London: Longmans, Green & Co.,  0-582-01086-1, OCLC 459757847

ISBN

Romantic Image (1957), Routledge & Kegan Paul,  0-00-632801-6, OCLC 459757853

ISBN

The Living Milton: essays by various hands, collected and edited by Frank Kermode (1960), Routledge & Kegan Paul, OCLC 460313451

Wallace Stevens (1961), Evergreen pilot books, EP4, New York: Grove Press,  0-14-118154-0, OCLC 302326

ISBN

Puzzles and Epiphanies: essays and reviews 1958–1961 (1962), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, OCLC 6516698

Discussions of John Donne. Edited with an introduction by Frank Kermode (1962), Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., OCLC 561198453

Spenser and the Allegorists (1962), London: Oxford University Press, OCLC 6126122

William Shakespeare: the final plays (1963), London: Longmans, Green & Co., OCLC 59684048

The Patience of Shakespeare (1964), New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, OCLC 10454934

The Integrity of Yeats (1964), with , Jeffares, Norman, Henn, T. R., and Davie, Donald (1964), Cork: Mercier Press, ISBN 0-88305-482-5, OCLC 1449245

Donoghue, Denis

Spenser: selections from the minor poems and The Faerie Queene (1965), London: Oxford University Press, OCLC 671410

On Shakespeare's Learning (1965), Manchester: Manchester University Press, OCLC 222028401

Four Centuries of Shakespearian Criticism (1965) Rouben Mamoulian Collection (Library of Congress) (1965), Avon library, OS2, New York: Avon Books,  0-380-00058-X, OCLC 854327

ISBN

The Humanities and the Understanding of Reality (1966), with Beardsley, Monroe C., , Bingham, Barry; Thomas B. Stroup, ed. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, OCLC 429358239

Frye, Northrop

(1967; 2nd edition 2000), New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513612-8, OCLC 42072263

The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction

Marvell: selected poetry (1962), New York: New American Library,  0-416-40230-5, OCLC 716175

ISBN

Continuities (1968), New York: Random House,  0-7100-6176-5, OCLC 166560

ISBN

The Poems of John Donne (1968), Cambridge: University Printing House, OCLC 601720173

Shakespeare: King Lear: a casebook (1969), Casebook series, London: Macmillan,  978-0-333-06003-2

ISBN

The Metaphysical poets,(1969), Fawcett Pub. Co, OCLC 613406485

On Poetry and Poets by T. S. Eliot (1969) editor

Modern Essays (1970), London: Collins,  0-00-632439-8, OCLC 490969948

ISBN

Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne (1971), London, Routledge & Kegan Paul,  0-00-633168-8, OCLC 637793898

ISBN

The Oxford Reader: varieties of contemporary discourse (1971), ed. with . (1971), New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-501366-2, OCLC 145191

Poirier, Richard

Lawrence (1973), London: , ISBN 0-670-27130-6, OCLC 628922

Fontana Modern Masters

The Oxford Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages Through the 18th Century (1973) ed. with , two vols.

John Hollander

English Renaissance Literature, Introductory Lectures (1974), with Stephen Fender and Kenneth Palmer

The Classic: literary images of permanence and change (1975), New York, Viking Press,  0-670-22508-8, OCLC 1207405

ISBN

Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot (1975), London, Faber and Faber, OCLC 299343248

The Genesis of Secrecy: on the interpretation of narrative (1979), Charles Eliot Norton lectures, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press,  0-674-34525-8, OCLC 441081372

ISBN

The Art of Telling: essays on fiction (1983), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,  0-674-04828-8, OCLC 9283076

ISBN

Forms of Attention (1985), Chicago: University of Chicago Press,  0-226-43168-1, OCLC 11518139

ISBN

The Literary Guide to the Bible (1987), ed. with , London, Collins & Sons, OCLC 248461187

Robert Alter

History and Value (1988), Clarendon lectures and Northcliffe lectures 1987, Oxford: Clarendon Press,  0-19-812381-7, OCLC 613291093

ISBN

An Appetite for Poetry: essays in literary interpretation (1989), London: Collins,  0-00-686181-4, OCLC 20419496

ISBN

Poetry, Narrative, History (1989), Oxford: Blackwell,  0-631-17265-3, OCLC 283038643

ISBN

Andrew Marvell (1990), ed. with Keith Walker, Oxford: New York, Oxford University Press, OCLC 21335465

The Uses of Error (1990), London: Collins,  0-674-93152-1, OCLC 246587512

ISBN

An Unmentionable Man (1994), ed. with Edward Upward, London: Enitharmon Press, OCLC 407255162

The Oxford Book of Letters (1995), ed. with Anita Kermode, Oxford: Oxford University Press, OCLC 406986931

Not Entitled: a memoir (1995), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,  0-374-18103-9, OCLC 32544681

ISBN

Stevens: collected poetry and prose (1997), ed. with Joan Richardson, New York: Library of America,  1-883011-45-0, OCLC 470040871

ISBN

The Mind Has Mountains: @lxx (1999), ed. with Anthony Holden, et al, Cambridge: Los Poetry Press, OCLC 42309776

a.alvarez

Edward Upward: a bibliography 1920–2000 (2000), ed. with Alan Walker, London: Enitharmon Press, OCLC 49843441

Shakespeare's Language (2000), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,  0-374-22636-9, OCLC 42772306

ISBN

Pleasing Myself: from Beowulf to Philip Roth (2001), London: Allen Lane,  0-7139-9518-1, OCLC 462323235

ISBN

life.after.theory (interview) (2003), Michael Payne, John Schad, eds.London; New York: Continuum, OCLC 51567851

Pieces of My Mind: writings 1958–2002 (2003) (American edition subtitled essays and criticism 1958–2002), London: Allen Lane,  0-7139-9673-0, OCLC 52144014

ISBN

The Age of Shakespeare (2004), London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,  0-679-64244-7, OCLC 59277844

ISBN

Pleasure, Change, and Canon (2004), with Robert Alter, The Berkeley Tanner lectures, Oxford University Press,  978-0-19-517137-2

ISBN

The Duchess of Malfi: seven masterpieces of Jacobean drama (annotated edn; 2005), Modern Library,  978-0-679-64243-5

ISBN

Concerning E. M. Forster (2009), Farrar, Straus and Giroux,  978-0-374-29899-9

ISBN

Bury Place Papers: essays from the London Review of Books (2009), London Review of Books,  978-1-873092-04-0

ISBN

Margaret Tudeau-Clayton and Martin Warner, editors (1991), Addressing Frank Kermode. Essays in Criticism and Interpretation

Christopher J. Knight (2003), Uncommon Readers: Denis Donoghue, Frank Kermode, George Steiner, and the Tradition of the Common Reader

John Sutherland interviews Frank Kermode

Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 19 February 2008 (video)

or "Books, Art, and Books as Art : A Cover Story"

Fontana Modern Masters

Frank Kermode interviewed by Christopher Tayler, 5 December 2009

interviewed by Jonathan Derbyshire in New Statesman

Frank Kermode

The Guardian, Wednesday, 18 August 2010.

About Kermode's life and obituary