M. H. Abrams, 1912 - 2015
Meyer Howard Abrams was born in Long Branch, New Jersey on July 23, 1912. He received a B.A. in English from Harvard University in 1934. He won a Henry fellowship to Cambridge University in 1935. He returned to Harvard University, where he received a Masters' degree in 1937 and a Ph. D. in 1940. He joined the Cornell University faculty in 1945 and taught a popular introductory survey class. While at Cornell in the 1950s, he was asked by publisher W. W. Norton to lead a team of editors compiling excerpts of vital English works. The first edition of the Norton Anthology came out in 1962. Abrams stayed on through seven editions.
He was also the author of a popular Glossary of Literary Terms, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, Natural Supernaturalism, The Milk of Paradise, and the essay collection The Fourth Dimension of a Poem. In 2014, he received a National Arts Medal for "expanding our perceptions of the Romantic tradition and broadening the study of literature." He died on April 21, 2015 at the age of 102.
030