Israel Gollancz

Sir Israel Gollancz, FBA (13 July 1863^[1] – 23 June 1930^[2] ) was a scholar of early English literature and of Shakespeare. He was Professor of English Language and Literature at King's College, London, from 1903 to 1930.^[3]

Gollancz was born 13 July 1863,^[4] in London, the sixth of seven children of Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gollancz (1820–1900), cantor of the Hambro Synagogue, London, and his wife, Johanna Koppell.^[5] He was the younger brother of Sir Hermann Gollancz and the uncle of the publisher Victor Gollancz. As a Jew, Gollancz faced significant antisemitism in his life and career, which was reflected in his academic work through his recurrent interest in Shakespeare's representation of Jewishness in A Merchant of Venice . Later in his life, many of his friends knew him by the nickname "Goblin".^[6]

Gollancz was educated at the City of London School, University College London, and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a second-class degree in the medieval and modern languages tripos in 1887.^[7] He lectured for a number of years at Cambridge University, and in 1896 was appointed the first lecturer of English there.^[7] In 1910, he married Alide Goldschmidt in London.^[8]

He was a founder member and the first Secretary (1902–1930) of the British Academy and of the committee for a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, which eventually became the Royal National Theatre in London, and he was the Director of the Early English Text Society.^[9] He edited the "Temple" Shakespeare, a uniform edition of the complete works in pocket-size volumes which was the most popular Shakespeare edition of its day. In 1916, as Honorary Secretary of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee, he also edited A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, an anthology of responses to Shakespeare from scholars, thinkers and other prominent figures from around the world.^[10] He also produced a translation in modern English of the important medieval Christian allegorical poem Pearl , which he theorized may have been the work of Ralph Strode. He contributed articles to the Dictionary of National Biography . Gollancz was knighted in 1919.^[11] In 1922 he delivered the British Academy's Shakespeare Lecture.^[12]

Gollancz died on 23 June 1930 in London, and was buried on 26 June at the Willesden Jewish Cemetery.^[13] In the year of his death, the British Academy held a memorial lecture in his name, at which they unveiled a bust of Sir Israel.^[14] Despite this prestige, Gollancz seems to have been regarded by the succeeding generation of scholars in his field as part of an "old guard" prone to fancy and unscholarly conjecture.^[15]

He had been working on an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , which was unfinished when he died. His long-time collaborator, Mabel Day, completed the work and it was published in 1940. Mum and the Sothsegger was also completed by Day and Robert Steele and published in 1936.^[16]

The British Academy awards the Sir Israel Gollancz prize for Early English Studies.^[17]

• "Sir Israel Gollancz Early and Middle English (transcript)". The Times . London. 24 June 1930. p. 16; col D.

Works by Israel Gollancz at Project Gutenberg Edit this at Wikidata

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