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Frank Kermode

Sir John Frank Kermode (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a pre-eminent British literary critic whose work profoundly influenced modern understandings of narrative theory, fiction, and Shakespearean language. Best known for his seminal 1967 book The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, which explored how temporal structures shape literary interpretation, Kermode combined rigorous scholarship with accessible prose to bridge academic and public discourse on literature. Born on the Isle of Man to working-class parents—a dockside warehouse worker father and a tavern waitress mother—Kermode attended Douglas High School before earning his degree from the University of Liverpool in 1940. He served six years in the Royal Navy during World War II, primarily in Iceland, before beginning his academic career as a lecturer at Durham University in 1947, followed by positions at the universities of Reading, Manchester, and Bristol. In 1967, he became the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, and from 1974 to 1982, he held the prestigious King Edward VII Chair of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Later, he served as the Julian Clarence Levi Professor at Columbia University from 1982 to 1984 and delivered the Norton Lectures at Harvard in 1977–1978. Kermode authored or edited over 50 books, including Romantic Image (1957), The Genesis of Secrecy (1979), and Shakespeare’s Language (2000), while editing key editions of Shakespeare and Renaissance texts. He co-founded the London Review of Books in 1979 with Karl Miller, contributing nearly 250 essays and reviews that emphasized clarity, literary journalism, and the visceral impact of poetry, as seen in his final lecture "Eliot and the Shudder" in 2010. Elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1973 and knighted in 1991 for services to literature—though he rarely used the title "Sir"—Kermode's criticism, rooted in his Manx origins and class awareness, championed the relevance of literature to everyday life and cultural critique.

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Family Background

John Frank Kermode was born on 29 November 1919 in , the capital of the , to John Pritchard Kermode, a local storekeeper involved in harborside commerce, and Doris Pearl Kennedy, a former waitress of modest origins. The family lived in working-class circumstances, with Kermode's father embodying the industrious yet limited world of manual labor in loading goods and managing small-scale trade, while his mother, fluent in both English and , instilled early lessons in social deference and civility through her service background. Their attachment to the set them apart from the island's dissenting or Catholic communities, reinforcing a sense of cultural distinction within Manx society. Kermode spent his early years in Douglas, attending local schools including Douglas High School for Boys, where he encountered the island's unique blend of traditions, , and literary heritage amid everyday . The interwar period's economic strains, including slumps and general on the isolated , shaped a environment of and , contributing to Kermode's later reflections on and mild from mainland norms. This peripheral upbringing fostered an enduring sense of outsider status, as the island's geographic and cultural separation from highlighted themes of that would permeate his intellectual life.

Formal Education and Early Influences

Kermode attended Douglas High School for Boys on the Isle of Man, where he overcame challenges such as undiagnosed before securing a to pursue . He enrolled at the to study , earning his BA degree in 1940. Driven by a family background that emphasized the value of academic achievement despite modest circumstances, his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of ; in 1940, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, serving for six years primarily in , where he monitored Atlantic convoys and experienced profound isolation amid harsh conditions. These wartime duties, including laying anti-submarine booms and assisting eccentric captains, shaped his early reflections on themes of remoteness and temporal discontinuity, which later informed his literary analyses. After his discharge in 1946, Kermode returned to the to pursue postgraduate studies, completing his MA degree in 1947. His undergraduate work centered on and modern literature, fields that captivated him through explorations of poets such as and , bridging historical traditions with contemporary sensibilities. During his student years, Kermode was profoundly influenced by the critical writings of and , whose emphasis on moral and interpretive rigor in literature guided his emerging scholarly voice. These encounters, primarily through reading their works, encouraged his initial forays into criticism; at age 20, around 1939, he produced his first publication, a study of the theatre manager Aaron Hill, alongside contributions to student journals that honed his analytical style.

Academic Career

Early Appointments and Teaching Roles

Frank Kermode began his academic career shortly after completing his postgraduate studies, securing his first teaching position as a in at , Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which was then part of , from 1947 to 1949. In this role, he focused on undergraduate instruction in , drawing on his recent training to introduce students to key texts and critical approaches. From 1949 to 1951, Kermode served as an assistant lecturer at the , where he continued to develop his pedagogical skills in , emphasizing and historical context in literary analysis. He then moved to the in 1951, initially as a lecturer until 1958, during which time his teaching centered on 20th-century poetry, Shakespearean drama, and modernist authors such as , whose works he began exploring in depth. In 1958, he was promoted to professor of at Manchester, a position he held until 1965, allowing him greater influence in shaping the department's curriculum around and modern literature. During these early appointments, Kermode took on initial administrative responsibilities, including contributions to in English departments to integrate contemporary critical methods with traditional canonical studies. He also engaged with literary societies, fostering discussions on and Shakespeare through lectures and seminars that bridged academic and broader intellectual communities. These roles laid the foundation for his rising prominence in , building directly on his in English.

Major Professorships and Institutional Contributions

After leaving Manchester, Kermode served as the Winterstoke Professor of English at the University of Bristol from 1965 to 1967. In 1967, he resigned as co-editor of Encounter magazine upon discovering its covert CIA funding, a decision that underscored his commitment to ethical integrity in intellectual publishing. In 1967, Frank Kermode was appointed the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at , a role he held until 1974. Under his leadership, the English department underwent significant innovation, including the establishment of postgraduate seminars on that attracted international scholars such as . These initiatives emphasized theoretical approaches to literature, enhancing the department's reputation for cutting-edge criticism. Kermode's tenure at the from 1974 to 1982 marked a pinnacle of his career, as he served as the King Edward VII Professor of . In this position, he focused on graduate supervision, guiding numerous students in advanced research on texts, and led influential seminars on Shakespeare that explored the playwright's language and thematic depth. His work at strengthened interdisciplinary ties between literary studies and historical analysis, though it ended amid controversy over departmental promotion policies. Following his Cambridge resignation, Kermode held the Julian Clarence Levi Professorship in the Humanities at from 1982 to 1984, where he taught courses on modern criticism and facilitated exchanges between and literary scholars. These American appointments allowed Kermode to influence U.S. academia with his emphasis on and cultural context. Throughout his later career, he advanced university reforms by advocating for interdisciplinary studies, exemplified by his editorship of the Modern Masters series (1970–1973), which integrated with , , and to broaden academic discourse.

Literary Works and Criticism

Key Publications and Books

Frank Kermode's debut book, Romantic Image, published in 1957, explores the continuities between Romanticism and Modernism through an examination of symbolist poetry and the role of imagination in modern literature. His seminal work, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (1967), analyzes narrative closure and apocalyptic themes in literature, drawing from the Apocrypha to Samuel Beckett to reflect on how fictions impose order on chaos. Among his other key titles, The Classic (1975) addresses the concept of literary canonicity and the enduring appeal of classic works. Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne: Essays (1971) re-evaluates major authors through a series of critical essays. The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (1979) examines the challenges of interpretation in parables and other narrative forms, comparing biblical and literary texts. Kermode also produced significant edited volumes, including The Oxford Anthology of English Literature (1973), co-edited with John Hollander, which offers a comprehensive selection of English literary works. He co-edited The Oxford Book of Letters (1995) with Anita Van Vactor, compiling notable correspondence from literary history. Over his career, Kermode authored or edited more than 50 books, with late works including Shakespeare's Language (2000), a detailed study of the evolution of Shakespeare's poetic style, and Pleasing Myself: From to (2001), a collection of essays on diverse literary topics ranging from poetry to modern fiction.

Critical Themes and Intellectual Legacy

One of the central concepts in Frank Kermode's criticism is the distinction between and , introduced in his analysis of narrative time. represents the sequential, ticking progression of clock time, mere successiveness without inherent meaning, while denotes those pregnant, crisis-laden moments that confer significance, transforming linear duration into purposeful narrative. This binary, drawn from biblical and classical sources, underscores how fictions impose endings to make sense of chaotic reality, allowing readers to experience time as charged with eschatological import rather than empty repetition. Kermode's emphasis on apocalyptic narratives further illuminates the role of endings in and , positing that such structures—rooted in the need for —mirror societal myths of and . He argued that apocalyptic fictions, from ancient prophecies to modern novels, provide paradigms for interpreting , influencing how stories endow middles with meaning by orienting them toward transformative conclusions. This framework extended to secular contexts, critiquing how mid-twentieth-century anxieties, such as threats, reshaped narrative expectations and bridged with literary form. His ideas on these themes profoundly shaped structuralist and post-structuralist by highlighting narrative's interpretive power, encouraging analyses of and over isolated . In Shakespeare studies, Kermode explored the evolution of language and its performative dimensions, particularly in the tragedies of the early seventeenth century. He traced how Shakespeare's style shifted from rhetorical explicitness to a more elliptical, performative around 1600, where words enact psychological and dramatic crises rather than merely describing them, as seen in plays like and . This approach emphasized language's dynamic role in performance, revealing Shakespeare's mid-career innovation as a move toward opacity that demands active interpretation. Kermode's broader legacy lies in bridging New Criticism's with cultural theory, advocating "useful" criticism that engages ethical and historical contexts without succumbing to ideological rigidity. He promoted criticism as a humanistic practice, accessible and pertinent to contemporary concerns, exemplified by his editorship of the Fontana Modern Masters series in the 1970s, which introduced key thinkers like Derrida and Foucault to wider audiences through concise, expert volumes. Posthumously, Kermode is hailed as the preeminent critic of his era, with tributes praising his lucid and ethical commitment to literature's role in illuminating human experience.

Personal Life

Marriages and Family

Frank Kermode married Maureen Eccles in 1947, a union that lasted until their in 1970. The couple had twin children, son and daughter . In 1976, Kermode married Anita Van Vactor, a that later ended in . The pair collaborated professionally, co-editing The Book of Letters in 1995.

Later Personal Challenges and Death

In 1984, following the end of his professorship at , Kermode retired from full-time academic duties, transitioning to a focus on writing and occasional lecturing. In his later years, he suffered from , which increasingly confined him to a . A significant personal setback occurred in September 1996 during a home renovation in , when Kermode's entire personal library of approximately 2,500 volumes—comprising rare books and unpublished manuscripts—was inadvertently destroyed. While preparing for the move, Kermode had packed the materials into about 50 cardboard boxes, which were mistakenly collected by refuse workers instead of the intended removal company; the boxes were loaded into a dustcart and compressed, rendering most contents irretrievable. This loss devastated Kermode's scholarly resources. Kermode spent his final years residing in , where he continued to engage with literature through essays and memoirs that offered introspective reflections on aging and mortality. In his 2001 collection Pleasing Myself: From to , he included ruminations on , blending personal candor with his enduring critical voice. Kermode died of natural causes on 17 August 2010 at his home in , at the age of 90. His consisted of a private service, attended by close family including his children from his first marriage—twin son and daughter —who described him as a beloved father in public announcements.

Recognition and Honors

Academic Awards and Fellowships

Frank Kermode was elected a in 1958, acknowledging his early contributions to . He became a in 1973, in recognition of his scholarly work in . Kermode was also named an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, reflecting his international influence in the field. In 1991, Kermode was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the for his services to , marking him as one of the foremost critics of his era. Kermode received numerous honorary degrees from prestigious institutions, underscoring his academic stature. These included a from the , his alma mater, in 1981; a from in 2004; a from the in 1975; a from in 1995; a from in 2003; and a from the in 2001. He was also appointed Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by .

Literary Acclaim and Tributes

In 2010, shortly before his death, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro described Kermode as "the best living reader of Shakespeare anywhere, hands down," praising his profound interpretive insights into the playwright's works. Kermode's contributions to the London Review of Books and New York Review of Books spanned decades, with nearly 250 pieces for the former alone, earning acclaim for his elegant and incisive reviews that synthesized complex literary ideas with clarity and wit. His essays, such as those in Bury Place Papers (2011), were lauded for their "graceful and astonishing" associational leaps and "unfailing astute" sense of proportion, making them enduring models of accessible criticism. Following his death in 2010, obituaries highlighted Kermode's stature as the preeminent literary critic of his generation. The Guardian portrayed him as a masterful reviewer whose work fused scholarly rigor with intellectual curiosity, noting his role in unraveling how ideas operate in . Similarly, The Telegraph described him as the most eminent critic of since , emphasizing his influential essays and books that shaped modern literary discourse. Tributes from contemporaries and posthumous assessments underscored Kermode's influence on modern critics, particularly his "magnificent usefulness" in rendering complex theory approachable to broader audiences. As one assessment noted, he taught a generation to "read well and to feel good about it," through lucid works like The Uses of Error (1991) and his reviews that prioritized clarity over academic obscurity. Friends and peers remembered him as an "utterly unpompous" scholar who wore his learning lightly, fostering accessibility in criticism.

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