Helaine Newstead

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Helaine Newstead (born April 22, 1906 in New York City , † October 2, 1981 ) was an American philologist who specialized in medieval literature.

biography

Helaine Newstead was the only child of a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in Harlem . She was a talented pianist and attended the Juilliard School in parallel with her studies at the Hunter Women's College . However, this double burden turned out to be too strenuous for her, so that she gave up her musical ambitions. At the Hunter , she attended courses in languages ​​and literature. A fellow student later recalled that Hewstead appeared rather serious and never took part in the typical "girl chatter" of the other students. In 1927 Newstead completed her studies with the grade magna cum laude .

Helaine Newstead then began her dissertation on Anglo-Saxon poetry while working as a tutor at Hunter College . At first she was "like a scared rabbit" afraid of her students, Newstead reported in 1957 in an article in the literary magazine The New Yorker ; In the course of her academic career she developed into a "powerful personality". At Columbia University she made her master's degree in 1928. The historian Roger Sherman Loomis , a specialist on King Arthur , became her mentor and would remain so for 40 years. For him she summarized a collection of German-language articles in the magazine Mabinogion in one article . Reluctantly praise Loomis, who was known for was impressed by their work, and he was the one who Helaine Newstead to employment with the Arthurian legend inspired.

1939 doctorate her with her dissertation Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romance , which is also regarded as their main work and still regarded as classics of this branch of research. In it, she meticulously traced many elements of the French Grail novels up to their Celtic forerunners, highlighted the importance of Wales for the Celtic traditions and illuminated the process of myth formation and the accumulation of legendary details. She has also published numerous journal articles and book reviews over the years, most notably in the Journal of Romance Philology and in the PMLA ( Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America ).

In the following years, Newstead made a career in academia: in 1948 she received a Guggenheim scholarship . In 1952 she was visiting professor at Columbia University , there in 1962 associate professor and in 1954 professor at Hunter College . After working at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York , she was given the opportunity to give lectures specifically on Arthurian literature. Together with Loomis she endeavored, even against resistance, to research and present the fundamental meaning of this literature.

Helaine Newstead has received numerous honors, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales in 1969 , where she learned Welsh . She was a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America since 1976 and was President of the International Arthurian Society from 1972 to 1974 . In total, Helaine Newstead was able to read at least 13 languages: among others, in addition to the modern languages Italian , German and French, historical ones such as Old Norse , Anglo-Norman , Middle High German and Old Irish .

When Helaine Newstead died in 1981, she was an institution at the University of New York ; she bequeathed her extensive library to the Graduate Center.

Publications (selection)

  • Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romances . Columbia University Press, New York 1939.
  • The Grail Legend and Celtic Tradition . In: Magazine of the American Society of the French Legion of Honor . tape 16 , 1945, p. 219-34 .
  • The Besieged Ladies in Arthurian Romance = . In: PMLA . tape 61 , 1948, pp. 3-31 .
  • King Mark of Cornwall . In: Romance Philology II . 1957, p. 240-53 .
  • Arthurian Legends . In: J. Burke Severs (Ed.): Manual of the Writings in Middle English . Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 1967.
  • Chaucer and his contemporaries; essays on medieval literature and thought . Fawcett Publications, Greenwich, Conn. 1968.

literature

  • Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi; Gale Sigal (Ed.): Voices in translation: the authority of "Olde Bookes" in Medieval literature: essays in honor of Helaine Newstead (=  AMS studies in the Middle Ages . Band 17 ). AMS Press, New York 1992, ISBN 0-404-61447-7 (XX, 222).
  • Gale Sigal: Voicing Silenced Rituals: The Unearthing of the Life Story of Arthurian Legend by Helaine Newstead . In: Jane Chance (ed.): Women Medievalists and the Academy . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI 2005, ISBN 0-299-20750-1 , pp. 683–696 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sigal, Voicing Silenced Ritual , p. 683.
  2. ^ Sigal, Voicing Silenced Ritual , pp. 685/86.
  3. ↑ a b c Newstead, Helaine. In: encyclopedia.com. April 28, 2020, accessed on May 5, 2020 .
  4. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - Helaine Newstead. In: gf.org. Retrieved May 5, 2020 .
  5. ^ A b Sigal, Voicing Silenced Ritual , p. 686.
  6. ^ Sigal, Voicing Silenced Ritual , p. 692.
personal data
SURNAME Newstead, Helaine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH 2nd October 1981
Place of death New York City