Émile Legouis

Émile Hyacinthe Legouis (born October 31, 1861 in Honfleur , Normandy , † October 10, 1937 in Dijon ) was a French literary scholar, translator and English specialist .

Legouis was the son of a textile merchant and, after a year as a teacher at the Collège d'Avranches, taught from 1885 as Agrégé for English and later professor at the University of Lyon. From 1904 to 1932 he was a professor of English language and literature at the Sorbonne . He was one of the most important French Anglisten, the founder of a French Anglisten school and author of a history of English literature with Louis Cazamian (1877-1965), of which he wrote the first volume until 1660 and which was long considered a standard work. He was less interested in literary theory, but concentrated - according to Rene Wellek (History of Literary Criticism, Volume 3) - on interpretations and the spirit of the poet . He dealt with William Wordsworth (beginning in 1896 with a study on The Prelude , in La Jeunesse de Wordsworth ), Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser . In his Defense de la litterature francaise al´usage des lecteurs anglais of 1912, he opposes the underestimation of French literature by the English, which he believes. In assessing English literature, he also applies French standards, for example when he believes he recognizes French cheerfulness in Chaucer's successor to the troubadours or criticizes Shakespeare (a selection of which he published in Paris in 1899) for indulgence and exaggerated lyricism.

He also edited a French translation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1908) and an anthology in 1928 with translations by Wordsworth into French.

Caroline Spurgeon is one of his students . In 1924 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Fonts

• La Jeunesse de Wordsworth, 1896 (English translation Early Life of William Wordsworth , London, Dent 1897, Reprint 1971), online
• William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon, 1922, Hamden (Connecticut), Archon Books 1967, online
• Wordsworth in a new light, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press 1923, Norwood Editions 1977
• with Louis Cazamian: Histoire de la littérature anglaise, Volume 1 (until 1660), 1924, English translation: History of English literature, Volume 1 (The Middle Ages and the Renascence (650-1660)), New York, Macmillan 1964, London , Dent 1971
• Spenser, London, 1923, English translation: New York 1926, Norwood Editions 1976
• Geoffrey Chaucer, Paris 1910, English translation London, Dent, New York, Dutton 1913, New York, Russell and Russell 1961, online
• Short history of English literature, Oxford University Press 1934

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Online
2. ↑ Pages choisies des grands ecrivains: Shakespeare. Paris 1899
3. ↑ Wellek History of Literary Criticism , Volume 3
4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed June 28, 2020 .