Manx writer, literary critic and professor
Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010[1][2][3]) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing.
He was the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University.
Kermode was known for many works of criticism, and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to modern thinkers. He was a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.
Early life and education
Kermode was born on the Isle of Man, the only son and elder child of John Pritchard Kermode (1894–1966) and Doris Pearl (1893–1967), née Kennedy. His father was a delivery truck driver and warehouseman for a ferry company, and his mother, a "farm girl", had been a waitress. The family was of "extremely modest means", and "struggled to maintain a respectable yet always precarious standard of life". The Kermode family- which according to Kermode's reminiscences had "some kind of Welsh connection"- had in previous generations been somewhat more comfortable financially; Kermode's grandfather was an organist, and his grandmother, who remarried as a widow, came to own an off-licence/ general store. Her new husband "staged a robbery of the shop and stole the stock and... she went bankrupt". Kermode's father, on returning from serving in the First World War, finding there now to be no family business, "took temporary jobs and then got what he thought was a job that would see him through, as a storekeeper and he stayed in that for the rest of his career". Kermode's father retired after the Second World War, both he and his wife coming to be in poor health; Kermode's mother suffered from dementia, and his father was "an extreme diabetic", dying from diabetes while resident in a retirement home.[4][5] Kermode, having come first in the examinations allowing attendance,[4] was educated at Douglas High School for Boys[6] and the University of Liverpool. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, for six years in total, much of it in Iceland.[citation needed]
Career
He began his academic career as a lecturer at King's College, Durham University, in 1947. He later taught at the University of Reading from 1949, where he produced the Arden edition of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He held professorships at the University of Manchester (1958) and the University of Bristol (1965), before being appointed to the Lord Northcliffe chair at University College London (UCL) in 1967. Under Kermode, the UCL English Department chaired a series of graduate seminars which broke new ground by introducing for the first time contemporary French critical theory to Britain.[1]
Kermode was a contributor for several years to the literary and political magazine Encounter and in 1965 became co-editor. He resigned within two years, once it became clear that the magazine was funded by the CIA.[1]
In 1974, Kermode took the position of King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University. He resigned the post in 1982, at least in part because of the acrimonious tenure debate surrounding Colin MacCabe. He then moved to Columbia University, where he was Julian Clarence Levi Professor Emeritus in the Humanities. In 1975–76 he held the Norton Lectureship at Harvard University.[1]
Awards and recognitions
He was knighted in 1991.[citation needed] A few months before Kermode's death, the scholar James Shapiro described him as "the best living reader of Shakespeare anywhere, hands down".[7]
Kermode died in Cambridge on 17 August 2010.
Personal life
Kermode was married twice. He was married to Maureen Eccles from 1947 to 1970. The couple had twins. His second marriage was to the American scholar Anita Van Vactor. The couple co-edited The Oxford Book of Letters (1995).[1]
In September 1996, he had boxes containing valuable books and manuscripts removed and destroyed in a dustcart by a Cambridge City Council refuse collection team (instead of the removal company employed to move them to another house). He sued CCC for £20,000; the Council denied responsibility.[8][9][10]
