Lionel Charles Knights(15 May 1906 – 8 March 1997) was an English literary critic, an authority onShakespeareand his period. His essayHow many children had Lady Macbeth?(1933) is a classic of modern criticism. He becameKing Edward VII Professor of English Literatureat theUniversity of Cambridgein 1965.
Early life
editHe was born inGranthamand initially attendedThe King's Schoolin the town, followed byHutchesons' Grammar School,Glasgow, andCambridgeshire High School for Boys.[1]He was educated atSelwyn College, Cambridge,where he read History and English, graduating with a first-class degree in 1928. In his final undergraduate year he won the Charles Oldham Shakespeare prize, shared withHumphrey Jennings.He was elected to a research scholarship atChrist's College, Cambridgein 1930, where he worked on his doctoral thesis.[1]
Literary career
editHe was a co-editor ofScrutiny,the literary journal ofF. R. Leavis's school, from May 15, 1932, to 1953 when it ceased publication.
He was an English lecturer at theUniversity of Manchesterin 1933, then Professor of English Literature at theUniversity of Sheffieldin 1947 and the Winterstoke Professor of English atUniversity of Bristolin 1953. From 1965 to 1973, he wasKing Edward VII Professor of English Literatureat theUniversity of Cambridge.
Personal life
editHe married Elizabeth Barnes in 1936. They had a son, Benjamin, and a daughter, Frances. Knights died inDurhamin 1997.[2]
Works
edit
- How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth. An Essay in the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare Criticism(1933)[1]
- Drama & Society in the Age of Jonson(1937)
- Explorations: Essays in Criticism Mainly On the Literature of the Seventeenth Century(1946)
- Poetry, Politics and the English Tradition(1954)
- Some Shakespearean Themes(1959)
- An Approach to 'Hamlet'(1960)
- Shakespeare: The Histories(1962)
- Further Explorations(1965)
- Public Voices: Literature and Politics With Special Reference to the Seventeenth Century(1971)
- Coleridge's Variety: Bicentennial Studies(1974), editor withJohn Beer
- Explorations 3: Essays in Criticism(1976)
- Selected Essays in Criticism(1981)
- Regulated Hatred and Other Essays on Jane Austen,with D. W. Harding and Monica Lawlor
References
edit- ^abMacKillop, Ian,"Knights, Lionel Charles (1906-1997)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2009. Retrieved 14 March 2018(subscription required)
- ^Obituary: Professor L. C. KnightsBoris Ford, Professor Henry Gifford 14 March 1997,The Independent