Rosemary Freeman
{{Short description|British scholar of English literature}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Rose Mary Freeman (9 December 1913, London – 9 March 1972, London) was a British scholar of English literature, a reader at Birkbeck College, and a specialist in Edmund Spenser. She won the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1951.
Life
Rosemary Freeman was the daughter of George Sydney Freeman and Adela Mary Grace Field.{{cite web|publisher=FindMyPast|title=Westminster Baptisms|url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBPRS%2FB%2F492173090%2F1|accessdate=4 April 2021}}{{cite archive |first= |last= |item = |item-url =|type = Parish Baptisms|item-id = |year = |page= 384|pages= |fonds = |series = 1914|file = |box= |collection = Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records|collection-url = |repository =St Margaret, Westminster|institution =City of Westminster Archives Centre |location = London|oclc= |accession= }} She was educated at the St Paul's Girls' School, London, and graduated from Girton College, Cambridge. She held a fellowship at Smith College in Massachusetts in 1937–1938. During the Second World War, she taught at Queen Mary College, London and Birkbeck. In 1958-1959, she was an Ottilie Hancock fellow at Girton College. She was a reader in English literature at Birkbeck College, and a University examiner for teaching colleges.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|title=Obituary: Dr R Freeman, Scholar and Teacher|first=Barbara|last=Hardy|date=March 20, 1972}}
The marine biologist Mary Freeman was her brother Richard's wife.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/mary-freeman-obituary-5svbk0qg2|access-date=4 April 2021|date=May 29, 2018|title=Mary Freeman obituary}}
Freeman's investigations into the English Emblem books led to her eponymous publication in 1948, which won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1951. This was considered a pioneering study and remained the standard work for decades.{{cite journal|first=C.W.R.D.|last=Moseley|journal= The Modern Language Review|title=Michael Bath, "Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture"|page=976|year=1995|volume=90|issue=1|doi=10.2307/3733073 |jstor=3733073 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/2501470bb283a44603feb82e079a24e7/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819145|accessdate=4 April 2021|url-access=subscription}}
Noting in the above book that the striking visual imagery in Edmund Spenser's poetry was a mirror of Renaissance emblems,{{cite journal|title=Jane Apetkar, "Icons of Justice: Iconography and Thematic Imagery in Book V of 'The Faerie Queene"|journal=The Modern Language Review|first=Patricia|last=Thomson|year=1971|url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/afb33935614cffb906ebe88ca17d3813/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819145|accessdate=4 April 2021|volume=66|issue=1|doi=10.2307/3722488 |jstor=3722488 |url-access=subscription}} Freeman conducted a years-long research into his oeuvre. Two books resulted: a short life and times of the poet in the British Council's "Writers and Their Work" series (1962), then The Faerie Queen: A Companion for Readers (1970). The latter book received mixed reviews: her judgments were considered sensible and balanced yet her interpretations were thought comparatively unperceptive.{{cite journal|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|title=Reviewed Works: The Faerie Queene, a Companion for Readers. by Rosemary Freeman;...|year=1971|volume=24|number=4|page=561|first=A. Kent|last=Hieatt|jstor=2859397}}
Selected works
- {{cite book|title=English Emblem Books|year=1948|publisher=Chatto & Windus}}
- {{cite book|title=Edmund Spenser|year=1962|publisher=Longmans, Green & Co}}
- {{cite book|title='The Faerie Queene': A Companion for Readers|year=1970|publisher=University of California|location=Berkeley}}
References
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Category:Academics of the University of London
Category:Academics from London