Dennis Taylor
Professor Emeritus
Dennis Taylor
Ph.D.
Contact
Email: dennis.taylor@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., College of the Holy Cross
- Ph.D., Yale University
Department
Biography
Dennis Taylor, emeritus professor, Boston College, spent his early years studying Thomas Hardy. At the turn of the century, he turned to topics in religion and literature, inaugurating the journal Religion and the Arts as its first editor, and turning to the study of Shakespeare and the Reformation. He was chairman of the BC English department (1982-87). He lives in Concord MA and rejoices in his 4 children, 5 grandchildren. He and his wife are currently (2022) helping to raise his grandson, George.
Publications
Books
- Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Reformation: Literary Negotiation of Religious Difference (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
- Hardy’s Literary Language and Victorian Philology, revised reprinted edition (Oxford, Clarendon, 1998; paperback 2001; orig. 1993).
- Hardy's Metres and Victorian Prosody (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988).
- Hardy's Poetry 1860-1928, Revised edition, hardbound and paperback (London, Macmillan, 1989; orig,. 1981).
- Editor, Jude the Obscure, Penguin edition, Reissued 2003, with introduction, "The Letter of What Law in Jude the Obscure", and appendix, "The Chronology of Jude the Obscure". Orig. 1998.
Collections
- Editor, Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England, co-edited with David Beauregard, 2003, Fordham University Press. Introduction by Dennis Taylor.
- Editor, Shakespeare and the Reformation, special issue Religion and the Arts 7.1/2 (2003). With Introduction by Dennis Taylor.
Web Page
- Shakespeare and Religion Chronology, Religion and the Arts, 2011
Academic Articles
- “The Old Faith, ‘The Old Sod,’ and the New Critical Openness” (review essay, on Jarlath Killeen’s The Faiths of Oscar Wilde), Religion and the Arts 14 (2010): 459-66.
- “Deeanne Westbrook’s Wordsworth’s Biblical Ghosts,” Religion and the Arts 14 (2010): 489-93.
- “Tennyson’s Catholic Years: A Point of Contact,” Victorian Poetry 47 (Spring 2009), Special Issue, Tennyson at Two Hundred, ed. Herbert Tucker. 285-312.
- “Jude the Obscure and English National Identity: The Religious Striations of Wessex”, in A Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed. Keith Wilson (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) 345-63.
- “From Stratford to Casterbridge: Hardy’s Early Reading of Shakespeare,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed. Rosemarie Morgan, forthcoming 2009.
- “Hardy’s Copy of Shakespeare’s Othello,” Thomas Hardy Journal (Autumn 2006): 33-47.“ Hardy and Hamlet.” In Thomas Hardy Reappraised: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate, ed. Keith Wilson. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 38-54.
- “Bearish on the Will: John Shakespeare in the Rafters,” Shakespeare Newsletter 54.1 (Spring 2004): 11, 16, 24, 28.
- “Hardy’s Copy of Hamlet,” Thomas Hardy Journal 20 (October 2004): 87-112.
- “Thomas Hardy and Thomas Gray: The Poet's Currency” (1998), reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism 143 (2004). Gale Literary Criticism Series, ed. Janet Witalec et al. Farmington Hills, MI.
- “Sorting out Catholic and Protestant Elements in Shakespeare” (Review Essay of books by Targoff, Freinkel, Knapp, and Shuger). Religion and the Arts 7.1/2 (2003): 177-92.
- Editor, Jude the Obscure, Penguin edition, Reissued 2003, with introduction, "The Letter of What Law in Jude the Obscure", and appendix, "The Chronology of Jude the Obscure". Orig. 1998.
- "More on Milward and Harner," Shakespeare Newsletter 52.2 (Summer 2002) 30.
- "Milward on Shakespeare After Fifty Years," Shakespeare Newsletter 52.1 (2002):
15-16. - "Hardy and Wordsworth," rept. in A Historical Evaluation of Thomas Hardy's Poetry, ed. A. Bannerjee. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
- "Wordsworth's Abbey Ruins." In The Fountain Light: Studies in Romanticism and Religion, ed. J. Robert Barth, S.J. (NY: Fordham University Press, 2002). 37-53.
- "The Chronology of Hardy's Poetry, Part 3" Thomas Hardy Journal, 18.1 (2002): 33-51.
- "The Chronology of Hardy's Poetry, Part 2" Thomas Hardy Journal, 17.3 (2001): 46-63.
- "The Chronology of Hardy's Poetry, Part 1" Thomas Hardy Journal, 17.2 (2001): 43-57.
- “Hamlet in Purgatory,", review essay on Hamlet in Purgatory, by Stephen Greenblatt, Religion and the Arts 5.3 (2001): 331-37.
- "The Perils of Embodiment: Geoffrey Hartman on Culture, Poetry, and the Holocaust," Religion and the Arts 3.3/4 (1999): 439-53.
- "Hardy's Copy of The Golden Treasury", Victorian Poetry 37 (1999): 165-91.
- "The Chronology of Hardy's Poetry," Victorian Poetry, 37 (1999): 1-58.
- "Hardy as a Nineteenth-Century Poet", in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed. Dale Kramer (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 183-203.
- "Hardy's Metrics", in Oxford Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed Norman Page (Oxford University Press, 2000), 270-73.
- "Hardy's Poetry", in Oxford Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed Norman Page (Oxford University Press, 2000), 326-32.
- "The Need for a Religious Literary Criticism", in Seeing into the Life of Things: Essays on Literature and Religious Experience, ed. John L. Mahoney (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998).
- "The Editions of Hardy's Poetry", Thomas Hardy Society of North America Web Page, Yale University, August 1998.
- "Thomas Hardy and Thomas Gray: The Poet's Currency", ELH 65 (1998): 451-77.
- "The Letter of What Law in Jude the Obscure", introduction to Jude the Obscure (Penguin ed. 1998).
- "Hardy's Use of Tennyson's In Memoriam", Tennyson Research Bulletin, 7 (1997): 32-41.
- "Editor's Introduction: Originality and Religious Criticism at the Present Time", Religion and the Arts 2 (1997), v-vi.
- "Editor's Introduction: Dangerous Transitional Objects", Religion and the Arts 1 (1996), vii-ix.
- "The Chronology of Jude the Obscure", Thomas Hardy Journal 12 (October 1996) 65-68.
- "Hardy's Copy of Tennyson's In Memoriam", Thomas Hardy Journal 13 (February 1997), 43-63.
- "The Need for a Religious Literary Criticism", Religion and the Arts 1 (1996), 124-150.
- "Hardy's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", lecture summarized by Joanna Cullen Brown, Thomas Hardy Journal, December 1994.
- "Literary Texts and the State of the Language: The Role of the Computer", Computers and the Humanities, 27 (1993), 341-47.
- "Hardy and Drayton: A Contribution to Pastoral and Georgic Traditions", in The Literature of Place, ed. Norman Page and Peter Preston (London, Macmillan, 1993).
- "Strang's Strange Portrait of Hardy, and other Strang Matters," cover article, Thomas Hardy Journal (February 1993), 90-1.
- "The Apparitional Meters of Wallace Stevens", The Wallace Stevens Journal, 15 (Fall, 1991), 209-228. ('Dennis Taylor makes a very interesting and fruitful suggestion . . .', Eleanor Cook, 'Introduction', The Wallace Stevens Journal, 15 (Fall 1991), 123.
- “The Writer, the Lexicographer, and Lexical Change”, Dictionaries, 12 (1990), 1-14. “I am very enthusiastic about the ideas contained in the paragraph at the bottom of page [15]”, reader’s report, Richard Bailey.
- “Hardy, Professor Goto, and the Oxford English Dictionary”, reprinted in A Memorial Volume for Yoshinoshin Goto In Honour of His 88th Birthday (Japan, 1990), 301-4.
- “Correspondence with Professor Goto”, in A Memorial Volume for Yoshinoshin Goto In Honour of His 88th Birthday (Japan, 1990), 294-301, 308-10.
- 'Foreward' to Marina Tarlinskaja's Strict Stress-Meter in English Poetry (Univ. of Calgary Press, 1993).
- 'Literary Writers and the Oxford English Dictionary: a Tribute to Professor Yoshinoshin Goto', in A Memorial Volume for Yoshinoshin Goto In Honour of His 88th Birthday (Japan, 1990).
- “Hardy’s Milton Once More” (with Dayton Haskin), Thomas Hardy Journal, 6 (October 1990), 71-2.
- "The Body of Victorian Language and the Hunting of the OED", Annals of Scholarship, 7 (1990), 155-64.
- "Hardy's Missing Poem and His Copy of Milton", Thomas Hardy Journal, 6 (February 1990), 50-60. Cited in Tim Armstrong, ed. Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (London, Longman, 1993), 52.
- “The Patterns in Hardy's Poetry”, in Modern Critical Views: Thomas Hardy, ed. Harold Bloom (Chelsea House, 1988).
- “The Second Hardy”, Sewanee Review 96 (Spring 1988): 250-58.
- “Hardy, Professor Goto, and the Oxford English Dictionary”, Thomas Hardy Journal, 4 (May 1988): 37-42.
- “Hardy and Wordsworth", Thomas Hardy Journal, 4 (January 1988), 54-68.
- "Hardy and Wordsworth", Victorian Poetry, 24 (Winter 1986), 441-454.
- "Joyce's Dublin", PMLA, 101 (1986), 862-3.
- "A Classroom Model for Develop mental Psychology" Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Improving University Teaching (London, 1979).
- "Hopkins and the Origin of Language," Inscape: Studies Presented to Charles Donovan, S.J. (Boston College, 1977).
- "Victorian Poetry and Victorian Philology," Victorian Newsletter, No. 53 (Spring 1978), 13-16.
- "The Patterns in Hardy's Poetry," English Literary History, 42 (Summer 1975), 258-75.
- "The Confidence Man: From the Pardoner's Tale to The Fall", Arizona Quarterly, 31 (Spring 1975), 73-85.
- "Hardy's Poetic Development: The Case of 'During Wind and Rain'," Colby Library Quarterly, 11 (March 1975), 68-74.
- "Natural Supernaturalism's New Clothes," Wordsworth Circle, 5 (Winter 1974), 33-40.
- "The Syntax of ‘Neutral Tones," Victorian Poetry, 12 (Autumn 1974) 285-90. Co-author Paul Doherty.
- "Some Strategies of Religious Autobiography," Renascence, 27 (Autumn, 1974), 40-44. Cited in Diane Sasson, The Shaker Spiritual Narrative (Knoxville, University of TN, 1983).
- "The Riddle of Hardy's Poetry," Victorian Poetry, 11 (Winter 1973), 263-76.
Reviews
- “Texts and Traditions, by Beatrice Grove; and Shakespeare’s Christianity, ed. by Beatrice Batson.” Comparative Drama 41 (2007): 396-400.
- “The Honeymoon is Over: Jonah’s Argument with God” by T. A. Perry, Religion and the Arts 11.2 (2007): 135.
- “Wordsworth: An Inner Life” by Duncan Wu. Religion and the Arts 10.4. (2006): 561-63.
- “Religion, Toleration, and British Writing 1790-1830” by Mark Canuel. Religion and the Arts 10.4 (2006): 556-59.
- “Shakespeare’s Tragic Skepticism” by Bell, Millicent. Religion and the Arts 10.3. (2006).
- “Hamlet in Purgatory,", review essay on Hamlet in Purgatory, by Stephen Greenblatt, Religion and the Arts 5.3 (2001): 331-37.
- “Rhythm and Will in Victorian Poetry, by Matthew Campbell", Victorian Studies 43 (Winter 2001): 357-8.
- "Reading Alcoholisms: Theorizing Character and Narrative in Selected Novels of Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf by Jane Lilienfeld," Thomas Hardy Journal 16 (May 2000) 76-78.
- "Robert Browning's Language by Donald S. Hair", Victorian Studies 43 (2001): 465-7.
- "Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry, ed. Robert Atwan, George Dardess, Peggy Rosenthal," Bible Review (2000).
- Shakespeare: the 'Lost Years', by E. A. J. Honigmann, review, Religion and the Arts 4 (2000): 579-82.
- Shakespeare's Romances and the Politics of Counter-Reformation by Thomas Rist, review, Religion and the Arts 4 (2000): 218-20.
- Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts ed. Arthur Marotti, review, Religion and the Arts 4 (2000): 208-210.
- Shakespeare, Catholicism, and Romance by Velma Richmond, review, Religion and the Arts 4 (2000): 215-18.
- "Anne Gardiner's Ancient Faith and Modern Freedom in John Dryden's The Hind and the Panther," Religion and the Arts 2 (1998), 263-4.
- 'Irene Collins's Jane Austen and the Clergy', Religion and the Arts 2 (1997), 145.
- 'Andrew Greeley Religion as Poetry', Religion and the Arts 2 (1997), 145-6.
- 'Donald Davie's Essays in Dissent; Church, Chapel, and the Unitarian Conspiracy,' Religion and the Arts 1 (1996), 151.
- 'Kieran Quinlan's Walker Percy,' Religion and the Arts 1 (1996), 152.
- 'E. P. Thompson's Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law,' Religion and the Arts 1 (1997), 152-3.
- 'James Gibson's Thomas Hardy: A Literary Life", Thomas Hardy Journal 12 (October 1996) 107-109.
- 'Forms of Speech in Victorian Fiction by Raymond Chapman', review essay, Victorian Studies 39 (1996) 412-15.
- 'Thomas Hardy's Tragic Poetry . . . by Katherine Kearney Maynard', Thomas Hardy Journal, 9 (May 1993), 73-76.
- 'Henry Weinfield, The Poet Without a Name: Gray's Elegy and the Problem of History', Journal of English and Germanic Philology 93 (1994), 439-43.
- 'John Lennard, But I Digress: The Exploitation of Parentheses in English Printed Verse' Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 93 (1994), 458-61.
- 'A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry by Joanna Brown, Hardy's Topographical Lexiconby Margaret Faurot', review article, Thomas Hardy Journal, 7 (October 1991), 121-4.
- "Eric Griffiths, The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry", Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 91 (1992), 263-7.
- "W.J.B. Owen, ed. Wordsworth's Literary Criticism," Wordsworth Circle, 6 (Summer 1976), 193-4.
- "Hateful Contraries, by William Wimsatt," Review of Metaphysics, 20 (1967), 536.
- "Ishmael's White Whale, by Paul Brodtkorb," Review of Metaphysics, 20 (1967), 554.
OTHER
- “Unplanned: Life with George,” Boston College Magazine (Spring, 2016).
- “Something Happened: Address to Graduates,” Boston College Magazine (Summer, 2009).
- "Haiti: (The do-gooder) A Long Look into the Eyes of the Poor", Boston College Magazine 61.4 (Fall 2001): 32-
- "Can We Talk? Notes Toward a New Synthesis of Us and Them", Boston College Magazine (Spring, 1996), 10.
- "Examined Lives: EN 448 and the Search for Meaning", cover article, Boston College Magazine (Winter, 1993), 32-40.