George Dekker

George Gilbert Dekker (born September 8, 1934 in Long Beach, California , † February 25, 2010 in Stanford ) was an American literary scholar.

career

Dekker studied first at Tulane University in New Orleans , then at the University of California, Santa Barbara ( BA 1955, MA 1958). He then went to Europe and studied at the University of Cambridge (MLitt 1961), then 1961–62 at Trinity College (Dublin) . He began teaching in 1962 at the University of Wales in Swansea. In 1964 he moved to the newly founded University of Essex , where he also received his doctorate ( Ph.D. 1969). From 1969 to 1971 he was dean of the Faculty of Comparative Literature . In 1972 he moved to Stanford University , where he was chairman of the department for English literature from 1978–1981 and 1984–85 . He taught here after his retirement, even after his cancer diagnosis in 2002.

His first book was devoted to the Cantos Ezra Pounds , his later publications mainly deal with the literature of English and American Romanticism . His latest book, Touching Fire, is an autobiographical account of the time when he was used as a firefighter against forest fires in Northern California in his youth.

Works

• Sailing After Knowledge: The Cantos of Ezra Pound . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1963.
• James Fenimore Cooper: The Novelist . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1967. American edition published as: James Fenimore Cooper: The American Scott . Barnes & Noble, New York 1967.
• (Ed. With John Probasco McWilliams): Fenimore Cooper: The Critical Heritage . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and Boston 1973; expanded edition: Routledge, London 1997. ISBN 0-585-46762-5
• Coleridge and the Literature of Sensibility . Barnes & Noble, New York 1978. ISBN 0-06-491655-3
• (Ed.): Donald Davie and the Responsibilities of Literature . Carcanet New Press, Manchester 1983. ISBN 0-85635-466-X
• The American Historical Romance . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990; Reprint 2002. ISBN 0-521-33282-6
• The Fictions of Romantic Tourism: Radcliffe, Scott and Mary Shelley . Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 2005. ISBN 0-8047-5008-4
• Touching Fire: A Forestry Memoir . Patsons Press, Sunnyvale CA 2008. ISBN 978-0-9745404-8-1

Web links

• George Dekker, scholar of British and American literature, dies at 75 . In: Stanford Report (Stanford University), March 3, 2010.
• Memorial Resolution: George Gilbert Dekker (1934–2010) (PDF; 50 kB) (Stanford University)