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'''Raymond Bruce Mitchell''' (8 January 1920 |
'''Raymond Bruce Mitchell''' (8 January 1920 – 30 January 2010) was a scholar of [[Old English]]. |
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==Biography== |
==Biography== |
Revision as of 06:33, 17 February 2012
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, who had accompanied him from Australia. They received permission to be married from Mitchell's supervisor, J.R.R. Tolkien.[2] He received a doctorate in 1959 with a thesis entitled Subordinate Clauses in Old English Poetry.[1][3]
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][4] 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 yard.[2]
His specialty was Old English language and literature and particularly Beowulf; his textbooks on Old English language are classics in the field, as is his edition of Beowulf, which he published with Fred C. Robinson.[5] His "magisterial" and "phenomenal" book on Old English syntax is still the standard reference work in the field.[2]
Mitchell was Terry Jones' 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
- Mitchell, Bruce (2007). A Guide to Old English (7 ed.). Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405146906.
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suggested) (help) (first published 1965) - Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax, Vol. 1: Concord, the parts of speech, and the sentence. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 9780198119357.
- Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax Vol. 2: Subordination, independent elements, and element order. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 9780198119449.
- Mitchell, Bruce (1988). On Old English: Selected Papers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0631158723.
- Mitchell, Bruce (1995). An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780631174363.
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Selected articles
- Mitchell, Bruce (1992). "Literary Lapses: Six Notes on Beowulf and its Critics". Review of English Studies: 1–17.
- Baker, Peter S. (1998). "The Dream of the Rood Repunctuated". Words and works: studies in medieval English language and literature in honour of Fred C. Robinson. U of Toronto P. pp. 143–58. ISBN 9780802041531.
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Festschrift
Walmsley, John (2006). Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 19. ISBN 9781405114837.
References
- ^ a b c d e "Bruce Mitchell". The Daily Telegraph. London. 9 February 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
{{cite news}}
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(help) - ^ a b c 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.
- ^ Walmsley, John (2006). Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 19. ISBN 9781405114837.
- ^ "News: Dr Bruce Mitchell, Emeritus Fellow, St Edmund Hall". St Edmund Hall, Oxford. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
- ^ Bukowski, Elizabeth (11 January 1999). "The Anglo-Saxon Who Took Hollywood". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2 February 2010.