Charles William Kent (1860-1917) was an American scholar, who taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Tennessee. He edited a number of collections of poetry, including poetry from the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, as well as the Old English poem '' Elene''.

Biography

Charles W. Kent (September 27, 1860) was born in Kalona, in

Louisa County, Virginia Louisa County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,596. The county seat is Louisa. History Prior to colonial settlement, the area comprising Louisa County was occupied by severa ...

. He attended the University of Virginia from 1878 to 1882, graduating with an M.A. With Lewis Minor Coleman he founded a college in Charleston, South Carolina, called Charleston University School, and taught there until 1884. He then studied in Germany, attending university in Gottingen and Berlin, and received his PhD in 1887 in Leipzig. He returned to the US, to the University of Virginia, where he taught French and German for a year, and then left for the University of Tennessee, where he became professor of English and modern languages. He left Knoxville in 1893 and returned to Virginia, where he became the first chair in the Linden Kent Memorial School of English Literature (the school was named for an older brother of his). He died on October 15, 1917.

Publications

Kent edited a number of books, including an anthology of Southern poetry, ''Southern Poems'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1913), and the ''Library of Southern Literature'' series (1909-1923). He also edited Cynewulf's '' Elene'' (1889), besides collections of poems including works by

Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

, Robert Burns, a posthumous edition of fellow Virginian Daniel Bedinger Lucas, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Selected publications

*Elene'', An Old English Poem, edited with introduction, Latin original, notes, and complete glossary'' (Boston, Ginn & Co., 1889). *''Poems by Edgar Allan Poe'' (New York: The Macmillan Company, 904. *''Shakespeare Note-book'' (rev. ed.; Boston: Ginn & Co, 906

Personal life

He married Eleanor Miles on June 4, 1895.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Charles W. 1860 births 1917 deaths University of Tennessee faculty University of Virginia alumni University of Virginia faculty