Picture of author.

Eleanor Shipley Duckett (1880–1976)

Autor(a) de Alfred the Great: The King and His England

16 Works 636 Membros 7 Críticas

About the Author

Image credit: Rutgers University

Obras por Eleanor Shipley Duckett

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1880-11-07
Data de falecimento
1976-11-23
Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
UK (birth)
Local de nascimento
Bridgwater, Somerset, England, UK
Locais de residência
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
England, UK
Educação
University of Cambridge (Girton College)
University of London
Bryn Mawr College
Ocupações
professor (Classics)
philologist
historian
book reviewer
medieval scholar
Relações
Chase, Mary Ellen (companion)
Organizações
Smith College
Western College for Women
Prémios e menções honrosas
Sophia Smith Fellowship (1963 and 1966)

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Eleanor Shipley Duckett was born in Somerset, England, and was encouraged by her father to study the classics. She attended the University of London, from which she received her bachelor's and master's degrees, well as a diploma in pedagogy in 1905. She taught classic literature at a high school in Surrey, but then returned to her own studies at Girton College, Cambridge, the first women's college at Cambridge. In 1911, she went to the USA on a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College, where she earned her doctorate in 1914. She became an instructor at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, teaching Latin and Greek until 1916, when she became a Latin instructor at Smith College. In 1928, she was named the John M. Greene Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, a position she held until her retirement in 1949. During the 1920s, her interests moved away from the classics toward the Middle Ages, and she became one of the 20th century's most respected medieval scholars. She began to write less academic, more general books, including The Gateway to the Middle Ages (1938), which established her reputation as a popular writer; Anglo-Saxon Saints and Scholars (1947); and Women and Their Letters in the Early Middle Ages (1965). She produced a total of 17 full-length books, and contributed many articles to scholarly journals and encyclopedias. She also worked as a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. She traveled widely to lecture, research, and receive honors for her work. With her companion, fellow professor and novelist Mary Ellen Chase, she had a house on the Maine coast called Windswept, a name which Chase used for a best-selling novels.

Membros

Críticas

First published in 1956 this quick light read provides a reasonable primer on the life and achievements of King Alfred, but little more. While it did a reasonable job of recounting the major events of his reign it didn’t really examine his character and some aspects, like his well chronicled illness, are quickly glossed over. The one area where it did provide more detail was on Alfred’s work translating Latin texts into Anglo-Saxon and laying the foundation for an English vernacular prose tradition. I now need to find a more modern detailed biography to fill in the gaps.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
gothamajp | 1 outra crítica | Aug 12, 2020 |
Eleanor Shipley Duckett’s biography is a useful introduction to Alfred the Great, the Wessex monarch who effectively created the kingdom of England. She begins with a description of the politics of eighth-century England, a world of maneuvering between regional kingdoms and invading Viking armies. It was in this dangerous and fluid environment that a young Alfred came of age, watching his father and two elder brothers deal with the threats Wessex faced before gaining the throne at the age of 22. From here her focus is on his struggles against the Danes, though other chapters also address his kingdom, his education, and his years after his many martial triumphs.

While enlightening, the book suffers from an excessive focus on narrative. As readable as Duckett’s prose is, Her focus on recounting the chronological development of events too frequently comes at the cost of a clear understanding of Alfred’s character and the significance of the developments of his life. Readers wanting to familiarize themselves with the basic details of Alfred’s life will find this a useful and enjoyable book, but those seeking a more comprehensive analysis of the great Anglo-Saxon king would be better served by Richard Abels’s more recent [b:Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England|1257228|Alfred the Great War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England|Richard P. Abels|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393217223s/1257228.jpg|1246033]
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
MacDad | 1 outra crítica | Mar 27, 2020 |
A collection of short but useful biographies. The prose is clear, and lively. She covers Hypatia, Theodosius the Great, Valentinian III, Honorius I and others.
½
 
Assinalado
DinadansFriend | Oct 28, 2016 |
ESD has assembled a fine collection of short biographies that put a human face on what we know about this distant era. She reminds of both the similarities and the differences, which is important for the historian to keep in mind.
½
 
Assinalado
DinadansFriend | Oct 8, 2013 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
16
Membros
636
Popularidade
#39,629
Avaliação
½ 3.3
Críticas
7
ISBN
27

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