Fred Colson Robinson (23 September 1930,

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

– 5 May 2016,

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

) was a scholar of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

; he was widely considered one of the world's foremost authorities on Old English.

Biography

Robinson received in 1953 his bachelor's degree in English and fine arts from

Birmingham–Southern College Birmingham–Southern College (BSC) is a private college in Birmingham, Alabama. Founded in 1856, the college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). More than 1 ...

and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English and comparative linguistics from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. His 1961 doctoral dissertation is titled ''Variation: A Study in the Diction of 'Beowulf'.'' After teaching at Stanford University and at Cornell University, he joined the Yale faculty in 1972 and eventually retired there as professor emeritus. He was 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 a ...

for the academic year 1974–1975. In 1984 he shared the

Haskins Medal The Haskins Medal is an annual medal awarded by the Medieval Academy of America. It is awarded for the production of a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies. Award The Haskins Medal is awarded by a committee of three; a chairman, an ...

with Stanley B. Greenfield for their 1980 book ''A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972''. Robinson was the president of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

in 1984. In 1996 he delivered the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

's Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture. Upon his death Robinson was survived by his widow, two children, and four grandchildren.

Bibliography

Works

* with Bruce Mitchell: (1982
''A Guide to Old English'', 3rd edition
University of Toronto Press; *
8th edition, 2012
Wiley-Blackwell. (The 1st (1964) and 2nd (1968) editions were written by Bruce Mitchell alone — later editions, from 1982 onward, were co-authored by Mitchell and Robinson. Mitchell contributed to the 7th edition but the 8th edition was done after his death.) * (1970) ''Old English Literature: A Select Bibliography''. * (1980) ''A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972'' (with Stanley B. Greenfield) * (1985)''‘Beowulf’ and the Appositive Style'' * (1991) ''Old English Verse Texts from Many Sources'' (editor, with E.G. Stanley) * (1993) ''The Tomb of Beowulf'' * (1994) ''The Editing of Old English'' * (1998) ''Beowulf: An Edition with Relevant Shorter Texts'', Blackwell (editor, with Bruce Mitchell, Fred C. Robinson, Leslie Webster)

Selected articles

* ‘The American Element in "Beowulf,"” in ''English studies'' vol. 49 (1968) p. 508-516. * The Aesthetics of “

Cædmon's Hymn ''Cædmon's Hymn'' is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 731), miraculously empowered to sing in honour of God the Creator. The p ...

," in ''Essays on Aesthetics and Medieval Literature in Honor of Howell Chickering,'' 2014.

''Festschrift''

* Baker, Peter and

Nicholas Howe Nicholas Howe (1953–2006) was an American scholar of Old English literature and culture, whose ''Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England'' (1989) was an important contribution to the study of Old English literature and historiography. ...

. ''Words and Works: Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature in Honor of Fred C. Robinson.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998

References

1930 births 2016 deaths Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Old English Birmingham–Southern College alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Yale University faculty Anglo-Saxon studies scholars Stanford University faculty Cornell University faculty {{US-academic-bio-stub