Bruce Mitchell (scholar)

Raymond Bruce Mitchell (8 January 1920 – 30 January 2010) was a scholar of Old English.

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, the same year he married Mollie Miller,[2] 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 1954[2] 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 Monty Python's "Bruces" sketch; he was disappointed to find out Eric Idle had written it and it was not based on him.[1]

Bibliography

Works authored

• Mitchell, Bruce; Fred C. Robinson (2007). A Guide to Old English (7 ed.). Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-4690-6.
  • 8th edition, 2012, Wiley-Blackwell. (The 1st (1964) and 2nd (1968) editions were written by Mitchell alone — later editions, from 1982 onward, were co-authored by Mitchell and Robinson. Mitchell contributed to the 7th edition but the 8th edition was done after his death.)
• Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax, Vol. 1: Concord, the parts of speech, and the sentence. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 978-0-19-811935-7.
• Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax Vol. 2: Subordination, independent elements, and element order. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 978-0-19-811944-9.
• Mitchell, Bruce (1988). On Old English: Selected Papers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-15872-3.
• Mitchell, Bruce (1995). An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-17436-3.
• Mitchell, Bruce; Fred C. Robinsion; Leslie Webster (1998). Beowulf: An Edition with Relevant Shorter Texts. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-17226-0. (first published 1998)[7]

Festschrift

Walmsley, John (2006). Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4051-1483-7.

References

1. "Bruce Mitchell". The Daily Telegraph. London. 9 February 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
2. Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 437.
3. Godden, Malcolm (31 March 2010). "Bruce Mitchell: Anglo-Saxon scholar who wrote the definitive work on Old English syntax". The Independent. London. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
4. Walmsley, John (2006). Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4051-1483-7.
5. "News: Dr Bruce Mitchell, Emeritus Fellow, St Edmund Hall". St Edmund Hall, Oxford. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
6. Bukowski, Elizabeth (11 January 1999). "The Anglo-Saxon Who Took Hollywood". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
7. Hill, Thomas D. (July 2002). "Reviewed Work: "Beowulf": An Edition by Bruce Mitchell, Fred C. Robinson". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 101 (3): 437–439. JSTOR 27712258.