The Life and Legacy of Edwin Greenlaw: “Teacher and Scholar”
type: CreativeWork
description: Drawing from recently available archival documents, this paper traces the life, works, and influence of Edwin Greenlaw (1874–1931), a notable scholar of Spenser and the English Renaissance and a beloved and influential teacher. Information from a biographical manuscript authored by his brother is supplemented with contextual history of literary education in turn-of-the-century America and the debates between literary historians and critics of the early twentieth century in order to trace Greenlaw’s model impact as both a practitioner and leader. His exegesis of Spenser’s political allegory, his numerous edited literature textbooks for the general student, and his activism for a more publicly involved university are characteristic of his exemplary career. Letters from his colleagues and students, written after his early death, emphasize Greenlaw’s remarkable and contagious passion for scholarship, a passion which might inform current movements in literary studies as they reconstruct pathways to hermeneutics.
abstract: Drawing from recently available archival documents, this paper traces the life, works, and influence of Edwin Greenlaw (1874–1931), a notable scholar of Spenser and the English Renaissance and a beloved and influential teacher. Information from a biographical manuscript authored by his brother is supplemented with contextual history of literary education in turn-of-the-century America and the debates between literary historians and critics of the early twentieth century in order to trace Greenlaw’s model impact as both a practitioner and leader. His exegesis of Spenser’s political allegory, his numerous edited literature textbooks for the general student, and his activism for a more publicly involved university are characteristic of his exemplary career. Letters from his colleagues and students, written after his early death, emphasize Greenlaw’s remarkable and contagious passion for scholarship, a passion which might inform current movements in literary studies as they reconstruct pathways to hermeneutics.
author: Higham, Mykelin
keywords: English Language and Literature, Intellectual History, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Spenser, philology, North Carolina, literary history, Elizabethan studies, biography
date published: 2022-02-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:59:54Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York