Leonard Wilson Forster
{{Short description|British professor of German (1913–1997)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{infobox academic
|honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FBA}}
|birth_name = Leonard Wilson Foster
|birth_place = London, England
|birth_date = 30 March 1939
|death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1997|4|18|1913|3|30}}
|death_place = Cambridge, England
|nationality = English
|occupation = Linguist and academic
|title = Schröder Professor of German
|education = Marlborough College
|family = Leonard Williams (father)
|alma_mater = Trinity Hall, Cambridge (MA)
University of Basel (PhD)
|workplaces = Leipzig University
University of Königsberg
University of Basel
Selwyn College, Cambridge
University College London
|spouse = {{marriage|Jeanne Billeter|1939}}
|children = 3, including Thomas
}}
Leonard Wilson Forster {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FBA}} (30 March 1913 – 18 April 1997) was an English linguist and academic. He was successively Professor of German at University College London, and Schröder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge.{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-professor-leonard-forster-1269318.html|title=Obituary: Professor Leonard Forster|website=Independent.co.uk |date=26 April 1997|publisher=}}{{cite web|url=http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/library/germanic-archives/archive-collections/leonard-w-forster-papers|title=Leonard W. Forster Papers – The Institute of Modern Languages Research|website=modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk}}
Life and work
Born in London, Forster was the godchild (and son) of Leonard Llewelyn Bulkeley Williams. Forster studied at Marlborough College, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages (a contemporary of Donald MacLean) and from where he obtained his BA in 1934 and MA in 1938, and the University of Basel, where he was awarded a PhD in 1938. During his studies, he served as English lector at the University of Leipzig in 1934, at the University of Königsberg from 1935 to 1936, and the University of Basel from 1936 to 1938.
During World War II he worked as an intelligence assessor/translator at Bletchley Park, with the rank of Lieutenant commander of the Royal Naval Reserve.
Academia
Forster was a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1937/1938–1950 and 1961–1997, a University Lecturer in German at Cambridge University in 1947–1950, and Professor of German at University College London in 1950–1961. In 1961 he became the Schröder Professor of German at Cambridge University, where he worked until 1979.
He was also the President of the International Association for German Studies (Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik, IVG) from 1970 to 1975.
In 1976, he became a Fellow of the British Academy. He was for many years editor of German Life and Letters, whose most famous subscriber is perhaps John le Carré's character George Smiley.
In 1979 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bath.{{cite web |url=https://www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/honorary-graduates-1970-to-1979/ |website=University of Bath Honorary Graduates |access-date=24 July 2024 |title=Honorary graduates, 1970 to 1979}}
==Family==
He married Jeanne Marie Louise Billeter of Basel in 1939 and they had one son, Thomas, and two daughters. He died in Cambridge in 1997.
Bibliography
- German Poetry, 1944-1948 (Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1949)
- German Tales of Our Time (London: George G. Harrap and Co., 1953)
- The Penguin Book of German Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957)
- Janus Gruter's English Years: Studies in the Continuity of Dutch Literature in Exile in Elizabethan England (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1967)
- The Icy Fire: Five Studies in European Petrarchism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969)
- The Poet's Tongues: Multilingualism in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)
References
{{Reflist}}
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Category:Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Category:Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II
Category:Schröder Professors of German
Category:People educated at Marlborough College
Category:University of Basel alumni
Category:Academic staff of Leipzig University
Category:Academic staff of the University of Königsberg
Category:Academic staff of the University of Basel
Category:Fellows of Selwyn College, Cambridge
Category:Academics of University College London
Category:Fellows of the British Academy
Category:20th-century British linguists
Category:Linguists from England
Category:Academics from London
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