Joan Bennett (literary scholar)
{{Short description|British literary scholar and critic}}
{{for|other people with the same surname|Frankau (surname)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2014}}{{Use British English|date=May 2014}}
{{Infobox academic
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| birth_name = Aline Frankau
| birth_date = 26 June 1896
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| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|20 July 1986|26 June 1896}}
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| nationality = British
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| alma_mater = Girton College, Cambridge
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| discipline = Literature
| sub_discipline = {{hlist|Metaphysical poets|Virginia Woolf|George Eliot}}
| workplaces = Girton College, Cambridge
Faculty of English, University of Cambridge
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Joan Bennett ({{nee}} Aline Frankau; 26 June 1896 – 20 July 1986), also known as Joan Frankau, was a British literary scholar and critic. She was a Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and a lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge from 1936 to 1964. She was among the "constellation of critics" called by the defence in the Lady Chatterley Trial of D. H. Lawrence.
Life and career
Bennett was the daughter of London cigar importer Arthur Frankau (1849–1904) and writer Julia Frankau (1859–1916).{{cite book | title=The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | author=Rubenstein, William D. | year=2011 | isbn=9780230304666}} Though she was known as Joan throughout her life, she was christened Aline.Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940 p82 She married the Cambridge literary historian Henry Stanley Bennett (1889–1972) in 1920.Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940 p234
Bennett was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Girton College, Cambridge, and was a life fellow of Girton, and additionally a lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge from 1936 to 1964.{{cite web |title=Bennett, Joan, (26 June 1896–20 July 1986), Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge; Lecturer in English, Cambridge University, 1936–64 |website=Who Was Who |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U161936 |date=1 December 2007}} She wrote one of the first critical studies of Virginia Woolf.Roden, Frederick S. Jewish/Christian/Queer: Crossroads and Identities Queer Interventions, Ashgate Publishing, 2009 {{ISBN|0754673758}}, p. 183 She was awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize by the British Academy in 1963 for her book Sir Thomas Brown: His Life and Achievement.
As one of the expert witnesses in the Lady Chatterley Trial, she helped counter the arguments of the prosecution by confirming Lawrence's reputation as a novelist, that the work was more than a description of sexual encounters, and that Lawrence's repeated use of ‘four-letter words’ were justified by literary intent.{{cite book | title=Lady Chatterley's Lover and "À Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover" | publisher=Cambridge University Press | editor=Squires, Michael | year=1993 | pages=xxxviii-xxxix}}{{cite web | url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/theme.jsp?articleid=101234 | title=Lady Chatterley's Lover trial (act. 1960) | publisher=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | author=Carter, Phillip}} Bennett's mother had earlier been credited by Mrs Belloc Lowndes with having been "one of the very few to recognise the genius of D. H. Lawrence".Mrs Belloc Lowndes, The Merry Wives of Westminster, Macmillan 1946 p62
Works
Publications by Joan Bennett include—
- Four Metaphysical Poets – Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Cambridge University Press 1934
- Virginia Woolf – Her Art as a Novelist, Cambridge University Press 1945
- George Eliot – Her Mind and her Art, Cambridge University Press 1948
- Sir Thomas Browne – "A Man of Achievement in Literature", Cambridge University Press 1962
- Five Metaphysical Poets – Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Marvell, Cambridge University Press 1964
Further reading
- C. H. Rolph (ed.), The Trial of Lady Chatterley: Regina v. Penguin Books Limited, Penguin Books 1961
- Aryeh Newman, "From exile to exit: the Frankau Jewish connection", The Jewish Quarterly Vol. 34 No. 4 (128), 1987
- Todd M. Endelman, "The Frankaus of London: A Study in Radical Assimilation, 1837-1967", Jewish History Vol. 8 Nos 1–2, 1994
- Derek Brewer, A list of his writings presented to H. S. Bennett on his eightieth birthday, 15th January 1969, Cambridge University Press 1969
References and notes
{{Authority control}}
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Category:British academics of English literature
Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge