Visiting hours will be held this Sunday from 3-8 p.m. in St. Mary's Chapel.

Fr. Barth, who stepped down as A&S dean in 1999 and following a sabbatical became the inaugural James P. McIntyre Professor of English, first came to BC as the Thomas I. Gasson Professor for the 1985-86 academic year.

His appointment as A&S dean in 1988 helped to usher in what has often been described as a "renewal" of the arts at the University. During his tenure, Fr. Barth established the Music and Theater departments and oversaw the opening of the McMullen Museum of Art -- whose benefactor, John McMullen, died Sept. 16.

Perhaps his most visible and enduring achievement was founding the Boston College Arts Council, which organizes the University's annual Arts Festival. The event, which began in 1999, draws some 10,000 BC alumni and area residents to enjoy a wide variety of performance and artistic activities offered by BC faculty, staff and students.

"He loved every aspect of the arts, and he represented the best of everything about the humanities," said Arts Council Chair Prof. Jeffery Howe (Fine Arts).

Fr. Barth was honored at the inaugural festival as the first recipient of the Arts Council Faculty Award. A&S also established the J. Robert Barth, SJ, Award for Excellence in the Arts, given annually at Commencement to a graduating senior for outstanding contribution to the arts on campus.

Interviewed by Boston College Chronicle in 1998 after announcing he would step down as A&S dean, Fr. Barth explained his devotion to the arts at BC: "The Jesuit tradition has always included a high interest and regard for the arts. So as a Jesuit institution, one which places such a high premium on formation of the individual, it is natural that Boston College reflect that tradition. That was a priority right from the beginning."

Colleagues point out that Fr. Barth played a key role in boosting the sciences at BC. Under his aegis, the University's program in physics was strengthened, and the Chemistry, Geology and Biology departments saw the regular arrival of major fellowships and grants. In addition, Fr. Barth played a role in the broad-based effort to revise the University's core curriculum. That initiative, which was completed in 1991, resulted in an expanded core that put a greater emphasis on cultural diversity, writing and the arts, and the creation of a University Core Development Committee.

"For all the attention he gave to the arts and academia, he never forgot his pastoral roots," said Jesuit Institute Director Prof. T. Frank Kennedy, SJ, who chairs the Music Department and was one of its first full-time faculty members. "He celebrated liturgy on campus regularly, and was always ready to give spiritual direction."

"[The core revision] was one of the most important things that happened, not only to A&S but the University as a whole," said Fr. Barth in the 1998 Chronicle interview. "Over the two years the study took place, we were able to bring the core to the forefront in a way it hadn't for some time."

But Fr. Barth's love of the arts -- and their importance to his vocation as a Jesuit academic -- was the most evident aspect of his deanship. He appeared in productions at Robsham Theater, concluded administrative meetings with poetry recitals, and, in the midst of casual conversation, offered dead-on impersonations of actors Barry Fitzgerald and Bela Lugosi with the same enthusiasm he mustered in appraising British romantic poets. Fr. Barth capped his tenure as A&S dean in the spring of 1999 when he served as narrator for the Boston College Symphony Orchestra's rendition of Aaron Copland's "Portrait of Lincoln."

In recent years, Fr. Barth found another avenue for his artistic expression, recording two CDs of read poems by William Wordsworth, Francis Thompson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ.

A specialist in British Romantic literature and the relationship between religion and literature, Fr. Barth was highly regarded for his expertise in the works of poets Samuel Coleridge and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His publications included Coleridge and Christian Doctrine (1969, 1987); Religious Perspectives in Faulkner's Fiction: Yoknapatawpha and Beyond (1972); The Symbolic Imagination: Coleridge and the Romantic Tradition (1977); Coleridge and the Power of Love (1988), and Coleridge, Keats, and the Imagination: Romanticism and Adam's Dream (1990).

From 1974-1988 he was a professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he was Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English from 1979-82. He previously taught English at Harvard University -- the first Jesuit to be offered a full-time teaching position there -- and Canisius College.

Fr. Barth studied English at Fordham University, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1954 and his master's degree in 1955, before taking his doctorate in the subject from Harvard University in 1967. He earned a licentiate in philosophy from Bellarmine College and bachelor's and licentiate degrees in theology from Woodstock College.

He was active in the Modern Language Association, the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association, the English Institute, the Keats-Shelley Association and the American Association of University Professors, among other professional organizations, and served as a trustee of St. Peter's College.

Fr. Barth was the son of Philip C. Barth of Juno Beach, Fla., and the late Mary Eustace Barth. He is survived by three brothers -- Philip C. Barth Jr. of Juno Beach, Fla.; Dr. Eric Barth and his wife Phyllis, of Park Rapid, Minn.; and Roger V. Barth and his wife Christina, of Bethesda, Md. -- and two sisters: Sue Starapoli and her husband Frank, of Rochester, NY; and Shari McCarthy and her husband Daniel, of Bonita Springs, Fla. He also was the brother of the late Karl E. Barth of Elmira, NY.

Fr. Barth also is survived by 31 nieces and nephews and 48 grandnieces and nephews.

He will be buried in the New York Province of the Society of Jesus Cemetery in Auriesville, NY.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the John J. Burns Library of Boston College or Jesuit Missions, 39 E. 83rd St., New York, NY 10028.