Helen Peters
{{Short description|Canadian academic (born 1942)}}
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| name = Helen Peters
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| birth_name = Helen Ruth Katherine Peters
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1942}}
| birth_place = St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
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| nationality = Canadian
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| education = B.A., M.A. Memorial University of Newfoundland
| alma_mater = University of Oxford
| thesis_title = A critical edition of John Donne's Paradoxes and problems, with textual and literary introductions and commentary
| thesis_url = https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma990129239710107026&context=L&vid=44OXF_INST:SOLO&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,Helen%20Peters&facet=rtype,include,dissertations&offset=0
| thesis_year = 1977
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| discipline = English literature
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| workplaces = Memorial University of Newfoundland
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| main_interests = John Donne
Theatre of Newfoundland
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Helen Peters (born 1942) is a Canadian scholar of English literature and a specialist in the theatre of Newfoundland. She is a winner of the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for 1981.
Life
Helen Ruth Katherine Peters was born in 1942 in St. John's, Newfoundland.{{cite journal|journal=Luminus|year=1975|title=About Alumni|volume=4|number=3|page=23}}{{cite journal|journal=Convocation|year= 1972|issue= Fall|page=8|title=Master of Arts|publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland}}
Helen Peters obtained B.A. (1971) and M.A. (1972) degrees in English from the Memorial University of Newfoundland.{{cite journal|journal=President's Report|title=Everything to Catch the Pennies.|page=|year=2003|publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland}} She was a holder of the University Medal in English in 1971.{{cite journal|journal=MUN Gazette|volume=3|date=8 June 1971|title=Medals and Awards|page=9}} She went to Somerville College, Oxford for doctoral studies, where she was a Mary Somerville Fellow. She obtained a DPhil degree in 1978 with a thesis on John Donne.{{cite journal|journal=Luminus|volume=6|number= 3|year= 1978|page=6|title=Alumni Update}}
She joined the faculty of Memorial University in 1984.{{cite journal|journal=The Communicator|url=https://www.mun.ca/marcomm/work/Communicator_Winter_2004.pdf|access-date=3 May 2021|publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland|year=2004|volume=18|number=5–6|title=Retirements|page=21}} She was elected to the university's Senate in 1993.{{cite journal|journal=MUN Gazette|page=4|date=21 October 1993|title=Notes from the Senate}}
Peters was a member of the board of the Newfoundland Quarterly, a cultural and literary journal.
Research
In 1980, Peters edited and produced the first critical text of John Donne's Paradoxes and Problems. This program had been started by Evelyn Simpson and continued by Helen Gardiner, under whom Peters worked on her doctoral dissertation, which led to the publication of this text.{{cite journal|journal= The Modern Language Review|volume=79|number=1|year=1984|first=Jenny|last=Mezciems|title= John Donne: 'Paradoxes' and 'Problems' by Helen Peters |doi=10.2307/3730335 |jstor=3730335 }} She incorporated ten paradoxes and nineteen problems into the canon, discarding two paradoxes as possibly inauthentic. She showed that Donne's first edition of the work in 1633 had omissions and corruptions, rendering it unsuitable for a modern standard text, and used material from subsequent prints to create her critical text. Her derivation of Donne's paradoxes from the classical style of argumentation (the mock encomium and the argument against received opinion) was well articulated but her dating of the works and placement in relation to Donne's poetry was deemed problematic, given the large amount of extant counter-evidence that showed affinities between the paradoxes and his prose rather than his verse.{{cite journal|title=Paradoxes and Problems. by John Donne|first=Janel M.|last=Mueller|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|volume=34|number=3|year=1981|jstor=2861524}} The book won the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1981.{{cite web|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/2628/Rose-Mary-Crawshay-Prize-pre-2000.pdf|title=The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize|publisher=British Academy|access-date=3 May 2021}}
Peters shifted her attention to the theatre of Newfoundland with her edition of The Plays of CODCO (1992), a professional alternative dramatics group known for its monologues, mime, dance and tough humour. A socially activist troupe, CODCO helped to counter mainland Canadian views of Newfoundlanders as simple-minded fishermen.{{cite thesis|title=Preserving the Best: Newfoundland's Cultural Movement, 1965-1983|first=Mekaela|last=Gulliver|type=PhD|publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland|year=2014|pages=235–236|url=https://research.library.mun.ca/8227/1/thesis.pdf|access-date=3 May 2021}} She explored cultural identity in the theatre and in 1994, convened a workshop for the International Federation for Theatre Research, which resulted in a special publication of the journal Theatre Research International, edited by her.{{cite journal|journal=MUN Gazette|date=20 June 1996|title=Take to the stage?|page=7}}
In 1996, she edited and published a collection of Newfoundland and Labrador plays, Stars in the Sky Morning.
Selected works
- {{cite book|title=Paradoxes and Problems|first=John|last=Donne|authorlink=John Donne|editor-first=Helen|editor-last=Peters|location= Oxford|publisher=Clarendon Press|year= 1980}}
- {{cite book|editor-first=Helen|editor-last=Peters|title=The Plays of CODCO|location=New York|publisher= Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.|year= 1992}}
- {{cite book|title=Proceedings of the Workshop on Newfoundland Theatre Research|editor1-first=Denyse|editor1-last=Lynde|editor2-first=Helen|editor2-last=Peters|editor3-first=Richard|editor3-last=Buehler|publisher= Memorial University|year= 1993}}
- {{cite book|editor-first=Helen|editor-last=Peters|title=Stars in the Sky Morning: Ten Plays Created in the Tradition of Collective Theatre|publisher=Creative Book Publishing|year=1996|isbn=978-1895387742}}
- {{cite book|editor1-first=Melvin|editor1-last=Baker|editor2-first=Helen|editor2-last=Peters|editor3-first= Shannon|editor3-last=Ryan|title=People of the Landwash: Essays on Newfoundland and Labrador|location=St. John's|publisher=Harry Cuff|year=1997}}
References
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Category:Academic staff of the Memorial University of Newfoundland
Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford
Category:Canadian academics of English literature
Category:Memorial University of Newfoundland alumni
Category:People from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador