Janet G. Scott
{{Short description|Scholar of English and French literature}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Janet Girvan Scott (also known as Janet Espiner-Scott; born 14 January 1894) was a Scottish scholar of English and French literature. Best known for her work Les sonnets élisabéthains, les sources et l'apport personnel, she was a winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1931.
Life
Janet G. Scott was born in Scotland. She studied at the University of Glasgow, obtaining a Master of Arts degree in 1917.{{cite web|url=https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH27475&type=P|publisher=University of Glasgow|access-date=27 March 2021|title=The University of Glasgow Story: Janet Girvan Scott}}
In 1926, she published an article showing that in Thomas Watson's The Tears of Fancie of 1593, nine poems were derived from Gascoigne and another from Spenser.{{cite journal|jstor=515120|last=May|first=Steven W.|title=The Authorship of 'My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is'|journal=The Review of English Studies| volume= 26|number= 104|year= 1975|pages=385–394 }}
Her doctoral thesis, Les sonnets élisabéthains, les sources et l'apport personnel submitted to the Faculté des lettres de Paris in 1929, was awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1931.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|date=January 11, 1932|title=The British Academy|page=15}} This publication was appreciated for its precise tracing of the sources of Elizabethan sonnets from Italian, French and English priors. She refuted the contention of her predecessors that every one of Shakespeare's sonnets was thematically found in Italian works, showing instead that poets of the time worked in a space of tradition rather than originality. On the other hand, she was able to show some semblances in Shakespeare's fifth sonnet to Samuel Daniel's Arcadia, while Spenser and Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella had greater influence from older works.{{cite journal|jstor=507932|title=Les Sonnets Elisabéthains: Les Sources et L'Apport Personnel by Janet G. Scott |last=Leishman|first= J. B|journal= The Review of English Studies|volume= 7|number=27|year=1931}}
After her marriage to Robert Henry Espiner, she published as Janet Espiner-Scott. Her husband had begun a study of Claude Fauchet but it was unpublished at his death in 1930.{{cite journal|title=Janet Girvan Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet, sa vie, son oeuvre; Documents concernant la vie et les oeuvres de Claude Fauchet; Claude Fauchet, Recueil de l'origine de la langue et poesie francoise. Rymes et romans (Book Review)|last=Patterson|first=Warner F.|journal=Romantic Review|volume=31|issue=1|year=1940|url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/0b7dd9457cde29e1f60d525630eee378/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1816663|access-date=27 March 2021}} In 1938, she published Claude Fauchet, sa vie, son œuvre, dedicated to her husband, which was met with approbation. Fauchet, a 16th-century legal figure in France, was well-known for his deep understanding of medieval literature, and this biographical study considerably expanded the archival sources and documentation of his life.{{cite journal|jstor=3717532|last=Moore|first= W. G.|journal= The Modern Language Review| volume= 36|number=3|year= 1941|title=Claude Fauchet, sa vie, son œuvre. Documents concernant la vie et les œuvres de Claude Fauchet. Recueil de l'origine de la langue et poesie françoise by Janet Espiner-Scott}} Among other achievements, she was able to catalogue several pages of notes by Fauchet on the Chansonniere des Mesmes, an important manuscript collection of trouvère poetry.{{cite journal|jstor=740216|last=Karp|first= Theodore|title=A Lost Medieval Chansonnier|journal= The Musical Quarterly|volume=48|number=1|year= 1962|pages=50–67 }}
In 1932, she became an assistant lecturer of French at the University of Sheffield.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|title=University News: Sheffield, July 11|date=July 12, 1932|page=16}}
Selected works
- {{cite book|title=Les sonnets élisabéthains, les sources et l'apport personnel|location=Paris|year=1929|publisher=H. Champion}}
- {{cite book|title=Claude Fauchet, sa vie, son œuvre|year=1938|location=Paris|publisher=E. Droz}}
- {{cite journal|journal=Revue de littérature comparée|number=2|volume= 34|year=1960|title=Sénèque dans la prose anglaise}}
References
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Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Category:Rose Mary Crawshay Prize winners
Category:20th-century Scottish writers
Category:20th-century Scottish women writers
Category:British academics of English literature