Anthony Colin Spearing (born January 31, 1936) is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

, specialising in medieval literature. He is perhaps most widely known for his books on the ''Gawain''-poet and Medieval dream-poetry and for his translation of ''

The Cloud of Unknowing ''The Cloud of Unknowing'' (Middle English: ''The Cloude of Unknowyng'') is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the ...

and Other Works'' for

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the West ...

Education

He was a student at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, a research fellow at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

and received his M.A. from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

in 1960. He has been a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge since 1960, and Life Fellow since 1987. He has an honorary Ph.D. from Lund University, Sweden, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters (Litt.D.) by the University of Cambridge on the 19th July 2014.Professor A. C. Spearing awarded Doctor of Letters from Cambridge
from the Department of English of the

Works

Spearing has published numerous books and papers on topics of medieval English literature, including many works on Geoffrey Chaucer. Works by Spearing include: *''Criticism and Medieval Poetry'' (1964, 2 edn 1972; ) *''An Introduction to Chaucer'' (with Maurice Hussey and James Winny, 1965; ) * ''The Medieval Poet as Voyeur'' (1993; ) *''Textual Subjectivity: The Encoding of Subjectivity in Medieval Romances and Lyrics'' (2005; ).

References

External links

A. C. Spearing articles
from JSTOR University of Virginia faculty Literary scholars Historians of English literature 1936 births Living people Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge {{US-English-academic-bio-stub