:John Matthews Manly
{{Short description|American professor of English literature (1865–1940)}}
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John Matthews Manly (September 2, 1865 – April 2, 1940) was an American professor of English literature and philology at the University of Chicago. Manly specialized in the study of the works of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. His eight-volume work, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), written in collaboration with his former student Edith Rickert, has been cited as a definitive study of Chaucer's works.{{cite web|url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/projects/centcat/centcats/fac/facch16_01.html|title=John M. Manly & Edith Rickert |work=The University of Chicago Faculty: A Centennial View|publisher=University of Chicago|accessdate=21 March 2013}}
Early life and education
Manley was born in Virginia, the son of Charles Manly, a Baptist minister and university president. He attended Staunton Military Academy and Greenville Military Institute. At the age of 18, Manly earned a master's degree in Mathematics from Furman University. In 1890, he received a PhD from Harvard University in Philology, a non-departmental field for which he created his own curriculum.{{cite web|url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.MANLY|title=Guide to the John Matthews Manly Papers 1892-1940|year=2006|work=University of Chicago Library|publisher=University of Chicago|accessdate=21 March 2013}}
Career
In 1884, at the age of 19, Manly accepted a position at William Jewell College teaching Mathematics, which he held for five years. After taking his doctorate in 1890 and teaching Anglo-Saxon at Radcliffe for a year, Manly accepted a call to Brown University and became one of the chief members of the English staff there, until 1898.{{cite journal|last=Hulbert|first=J.R.|title=John Matthews Manly, 1865 - 1940|journal=Modern Philology|date=August 1940|volume=38|issue=1|pages=1–8|jstor=433980|doi=10.1086/388458|s2cid=162190802 }} He then accepted the department chair in English at the University of Chicago, which he maintained until retirement.
Manly was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1912.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=John+M.+Manly&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-11-21 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}} During World War I, he served as cryptanalyst in the Military Intelligence Division.
He gave the 1926 Warton Lecture on English Poetry.{{cite journal|title=Chaucer's Use of the Apostrophe in "Troilus and Criseyde"|author=Koretsky, Allen C.|journal=The Chaucer Review|volume=4|issue=4|date=Spring 1970|pages=242–266|jstor=25093132}} (Manly was the first American to give a Warton Lecture.) In 1931, he published a paper in the journal Speculum disproving William Romaine Newbold's deciphering of the Voynich Manuscript.{{cite book|first=M. E. |last=D'Imperio |title=The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma |location=Fort George G. Meade, MD |publisher=National Security Agency/Central Security Service |year=1978 |oclc=50929259 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA070618.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130409223854/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA070618 | url-status=live | archive-date=April 9, 2013 | pages=33–35}}{{cite journal|last1=Manly|first1=John Matthews|title=Roger Bacon and the Voynich MS|journal=Speculum|volume=6|issue=3|year=1931|pages=345–391|issn=0038-7134|doi=10.2307/2848508 |jstor=2848508|s2cid=163421798 }}
Selected publications
- as editor: {{cite book|title=English Poetry (1170–1892)|year=1907|publisher=Ginn & Co|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.98569/page/n3/mode/2up/}}
- with Edith Rickert: {{cite book|title=The Writing of English|year=1919|publisher=Henry Holt & Co|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/writingofenglish00manliala}}; {{cite book|title=1920 2nd edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G_sAAAAAYAAJ| last1=Manly | first1=John Matthews | last2=Rickert | first2=Edith | year=1920 }}
References
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External links
- [http://www.librarything.com/author/manlyjohnmatthews List of John Matthews Manly publications]
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t2988rh55 Full Text of "Contemporary British Literature: Bibliographies and Study Outlines," by John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert.]
- {{Gutenberg author | id=8157| name=John Matthews Manly}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Matthews Manly}}
- [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.MANLY Guide to the John Matthews Manly Papers 1885-1940] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center]
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Category:American philologists
Category:Brown University faculty
Category:Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
Category:Furman University alumni
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Linguists from the United States
Category:Presidents of the Modern Language Association
Category:Shakespearean scholars
Category:University of Chicago faculty
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