James Mercer Garnett (English Studies)

James Mercer Garnett

James Mercer Garnett (born April 24, 1840 in Aldie , Virginia , † February 18, 1916 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was an American English student .

Life

James Mercer Garnett was the son of Theodore Stanford Garnett (1812-1885) and Florentina Isidora Moreno (1822-1907). His grandfather was the politician of the same name James Mercer Garnett (1770–1843). Other members of the long-established family also held important positions as judges, governors and congressmen in the 18th and 19th centuries.

James Mercer Garnett was the home of his great-uncle Charles F. Mercer in (1778-1858) Aldie ( Virginia born) and grew up in various places, as his father often changed as an engineer to work. James attended Episcopal High School and studied from 1857 at the University of Virginia , where he received his master's degree in 1859 . After a year teaching at Greenwood School in Albemarle County , he returned to the University of Virginia in 1860 to take up graduate studies. The outbreak of the Civil War interrupted his career: Garnett joined the Confederate States Army on July 17, 1861 . He belonged to the so-called Stonewall Brigade and rose there to Captain of Artillery. After the battle at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 and the surrender of the Confederate Forces, Garnett received his pardon and returned to the University of Virginia, where he was hired as Licenciate Professor of Ancient Languages ​​in 1865. From 1866 he taught Greek and mathematics.

From 1867 to 1869 Garnett was the head of Episcopal High School. He resigned from this position in order to deepen his studies in Europe and went to the universities of Leipzig and Berlin in 1869/70 . Upon his return, he was named President of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland in 1870 . During his ten-year tenure there, he dealt intensively with pedagogical and educational-political issues and taught Greek and Latin as well as Old English , which became one of his main research areas. In order to improve the academic training of English teachers, he founded the Department of English at St. John's College and directed it himself. In 1874, the University of Virginia awarded him an honorary doctorate (LL. D.).

Garnett left college in 1880, founded a private school in Ellicott City (Maryland) and carried out various projects such as his translation of Beowulf (1882). This and other work, as well as his reputation as an educator, academic teacher and organizer earned him a call to the University of Virginia, where he was hired in 1882 as Professor of English. 1893/94 he was President of the American Philological Association , from 1895 to 1897 Acting Professor of English at Goucher College . He resigned his professorship at the University of Virginia in 1896 and moved to Baltimore. Until his death he published writings on Old English literature, the didactics of English studies and the genealogy of his family; he also published his memoirs at the University of Virginia at the time of the Civil War in 1912. His estate, which particularly includes notes, letters, and objects from his military service, is in the Library of Virginia .

Fonts (selection)

• Beowulf: An Anglo-saxon Poem, and the Fight at Finnsburg . Boston 1882. Several reprints
• Elene; Judith; Athelstan or the Fight at Brunnanburgh; and Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon: Anglo-Saxon Poems . Boston 1889
• Selections in English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria, 1580-1880 . Boston 1899. Reprinted 1978
• Genealogy of the Mercer-Garnett Family of Essex County, Virginia . Richmond 1910
• Biographical Sketch of Hon. Charles Fenton Mercer, 1778-1858 . Richmond 1911

literature

• University of Virginia. Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics, with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Founders, Benefactors, Officers and Alumni . Volume 2, New York 1904, pp. 22–24 (with picture)
• James W. Bright: James Mercer Garnett (1840-1916) . In: American Journal of Philology . Volume 37 (1916), pp. 244-247