Bruce Mitchell (scholar)
Raymond Bruce Mitchell (8 January 1920 – 30 January 2010) was a scholar of Old English.
Contents
Biography
Early life, Australia
Mitchell was born in Lismore, New South Wales. He won a free place at the University of Melbourne but was unable to take it up and instead after leaving school at 15, worked as a student teacher while studying part-time. He earned a general Arts degree.[1]
He was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1940 and served as an intelligence officer in the Australian Imperial Force from 1941 to 1946. He then ran a printing company before returning to the university, again part-time while working as a gardener, builders' labourer and railway porter, and tutoring English at the university. He took Firsts in English Language and Literature in 1948 and in Comparative Philology in 1952.[1]
Scholarly career, Oxford
He entered Merton College, Oxford, on a scholarship in 1952,[2] the same year he married Mollie Miller, who had accompanied him from Australia. They received permission to be married from Mitchell's supervisor, J.R.R. Tolkien.[3] He received a doctorate in 1959 with a thesis entitled Subordinate Clauses in Old English Poetry.[1][4] In 1986 he gained the degree of D.Litt (Oxon) for his contribution to Old English studies.
Mitchell was a Fellow and a Tutor at St Edmund Hall, Oxford from 1955 to 1987, and after retirement was elected an emeritus fellow.[1][5] Though he spent his entire life in Oxford since age 32, he never lost his Australian accent, and displayed his heritage by having an Australian flag and a eucalyptus tree in his garden.[3]
His specialty was Old English language and literature and particularly Beowulf; his textbooks on Old English language are considered classics in the field, as is his edition of Beowulf, which he published with Fred C. Robinson.[6] His "magisterial" and "phenomenal" book on Old English syntax is still the standard reference work in the field.[3]
Mitchell was Terry Jones's tutor and believed he was the inspiration for the Monty Python "Bruces" sketch; he was disappointed to find out Eric Idle had written it and it was not based on him.[1]
Bibliography
Works authored
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (first published 1965)
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- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (first published 1998)
Selected articles
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Festschrift
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
