Traugott Lawler (born 8 March 1937) is a medievalist scholar, expert on

William Langland William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem tr ...

, and an emeritus professor of English at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, where he served as master of

Ezra Stiles College Ezra Stiles College is one of the fourteen residential colleges at Yale University, built in 1961 and designed by Eero Saarinen. It is often simply called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master Traugott Lawler to preserve the us ...

and also as a lecturer in religion and literature.

Biography

Lawler graduated from Regis High School in 1954, and then attended the

College of the Holy Cross The College of the Holy Cross is a private, Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest ...

, graduating with a B.A. in 1958, and the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

(M.A. 1962). He obtained his doctorate at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. In 1983, Lawler was named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. From 1986 to 1995, and from 2002 to 2003 he served as Master of Ezra Stiles College. He retired from teaching in 2005 to prepare, with other scholars, a commentary on the known versions of ''

Piers Plowman ''Piers Plowman'' (written 1370–86; possibly ) or ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' (''William's Vision of Piers Plowman'') is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in un-rhymed, alliterative v ...

''. The book was released by

University of Pennsylvania Press The University of Pennsylvania Press (or Penn Press) is a university press affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The press was originally incorporated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on 26 Ma ...

. Under Lawler's leadership,

had remarkable intramural success. During his first tenure as Master, Stiles won the Tyng Cup in six out of eight years. During his second term of service as Master, Ezra Stiles again won the Tyng Cup and continued to win in two subsequent years under the guidance of Stuart Schwartz. Traugott is the younger brother of environmental engineer John P. Lawler, founder of Lawler, Matusky, & Skelly Engineers, which was later acquired by

HDR, Inc. HDR, Inc. is an employee-owned design firm, specializing in engineering, architecture, environmental, and construction services. HDR has worked on projects in all 50 U.S. states and in 60 countries, including notable projects such as the Hoover ...

Traugott is the great-uncle of

Mike Lawler Michael Vincent Lawler (born September 9, 1986) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 17th congressional district since 2023. From 2021 to 2022, he was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly fro ...

, a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

Member of Congress. He has four children, Peter, Dan, Kate, and Greg with wife Margaret (Peggy) Lawler and eight grandchildren.

Notes

Works

*Traugott Lawler, ed. and trans., ''John of Garland's Parisiana poetria de arte prosaica, metrica, et rithmica'' (Cambridge, Mass.: Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1966). *Traugott Lawler, ''The One and the Many in the Canterbury Tales'' (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1980). *Traugott Lawler, ed. and trans., ''The Parisiana Poetria of John of Garland'', Yale Studies in English 182 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974). *Traugott Lawler, ed., "Boece," in ''The Riverside Chaucer'' (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987). *Traugott Lawler, "The Pardon Formula in Piers Plowman: Its Ubiquity, Its Binary Shape, Its Silent Middle Term," ''The Yearbook of Langland Studies'' ( YLS ), volume 14, (2000, ) *Traugott Lawler, "The Secular Clergy in Piers Plowman", with Míċeál F. Vaughan, "Response", ''The Yearbook of Langland Studies'' ( YLS ), volume 16, (2003, ) *Traugott Lawler, ed. and trans., ''Parisiana poetria'', Dumbarton Oaks Meideval Library 65 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020).

External links

Traugott Lawler Papers (MS 2023)
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. 1937 births Living people American medievalists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Harvard University alumni College of the Holy Cross alumni Yale University faculty {{US-historian-stub