Herschel Clay Baker

Herschel Clay Baker
Born	Cleburne
Died	2 February 1990
Alma mater	Harvard University Southern Methodist University
Occupation	Scholar of English literary scholar university teacher man of letters
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship
Academic career
Fields	English literature
Institutions	Harvard University

Herschel Clay Baker (8 November 1914, Cleburne, Texas – 2 February 1990, Belmont, Massachusetts)[1] was an American professor of English literature, specializing in the intellectual history[2] of Christian humanism[3] and its erosion.[4]

He did his undergraduate work at Southern Methodist University and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1939. He taught at the University of Texas for seven years, before joining the Harvard faculty in 1946. While teaching at Harvard he served several terms as the chair of the English Department.[2]

Baker's 1947 book The Dignity of Man is a series of chronological studies tracing the development of Christian humanism until the Reformation.[3] His 1952 book on the decay of Christian humanism relies on earlier work by Hardin Craig and Basil Willey.[4]

Baker was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic years 1956–1957 and 1963–1964.[5] In 1966 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Southern Methodist University.[6]

Upon his death he was survived by his widow, one son, and two daughters.[2][7]

Selected publications

• ——, ed. (1975). Later Renaissance in England : nondramatic verse and prose, 1600-1660. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395160381.
• ——, ed. (1971). Four essays on romance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-31475-7.
• ——; Lumiansky, Robert, eds. (1968). Critical approaches to six major English works: Beowulf through Paradise Lost. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812210071.
• —— (1967). Race of time: three lectures on Renaissance historiography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.[8][9]
• —— (1962). William Hazlitt. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.[10][11]
• —— (1960). Hyder Edward Rollins: a bibliography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. OCLC 654707.
• —— (1952). The war of truth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.[12]
• —— (1947). The Dignity of man: studies in the persistence of an idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674734937. ISBN 9780674734937.
• —— (1942). John Philip Kemble; the actor in his theatre. New York: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674734944. ISBN 9780674734944.

References

1. Herschel Clay Baker at Find a Grave^[user-generated source]
2. "English Prof. Emeritus Herschel Baker Dies at 75". The Harvard Crimson. 3 February 1990.
3. Cailliet, Émile (1948). "The Dignity of Man, by Herschel Baker. 365 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1947. $5.00". Theology Today. 5 (3): 433–435. doi:10.1177/004057364800500317. S2CID 170810424.
4. Sharrock, Roger (1954). "Reviewed work: The War of Truth: Studies in the Decay of Christian Humanism in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 5 (18): 191–193. doi:10.1093/res/V.18.191. JSTOR 510956.
5. "Herschel C. Baker". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
6. "Herschel Clay Baker, Doctor of Letters 1966". Honorary Degrees, SMU.
7. "William Terence Baker 1943–2013". Reno Gazette Journal (legacy.com).
8. Ferguson, Wallace K. (1968). "Review of The Race of Time, Three Lectures on Renaissance Historiography". Canadian Journal of History. 3 (2): 84. doi:10.3138/cjh.3.2.84.
9. Poirier, Michel (1968). "Revue de The Race of Time". Études Anglaises. 21 (2): 187. (in French)
10. Gettmann, Royal A. (1963). "Reviewed work: William Hazlitt by Herschel Baker". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 62 (3): 692–695. JSTOR 27714332.
11. Carnall, Geoffrey (1964). "Reviewed work: William Hazlitt by Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 15 (58): 210–212. doi:10.1093/res/XV.58.210. JSTOR 513452.
12. Sharrock, Roger (1954). "Reviewed work: The War of Truth: Studies in the Decay of Christian Humanism in the Earlier Seventeenth Century by Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 5 (18): 191–193. doi:10.1093/res/V.18.191. JSTOR 510956.