Herschel Clay Baker (8 November 1914,
Cleburne, Texas – 2 February 1990,
Belmont, Massachusetts)[1] was an American professor of English literature, specializing in the intellectual history[2] of Christian humanism[3] and its erosion.[4]
He did his undergraduate work at Southern Methodist University and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1939. He taught at the University of Texas for seven years, before joining the Harvard faculty in 1946. While teaching at Harvard he served several terms as the chair of the English Department.[2]
Baker's 1947 book The Dignity of Man is a series of chronological studies tracing the development of Christian humanism until the
Reformation.[3] His 1952 book on the decay of Christian humanism relies on earlier work by
Hardin Craig and
Basil Willey.[4]
Baker was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic years 1956–1957 and 1963–1964.[5] In 1966 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Southern Methodist University.[6]
Upon his death he was survived by his widow, one son, and two daughters.[2][7]
Selected publications
John Philip Kemble; the actor in his theatre. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1942. 1969 edition. New York: Greenwood Press.
Dignity of man; studies in the persistence of an idea. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1947.
The war of truth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1952.[8]
Hyder Edward Rollins: a bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1960.
William Hazlitt. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1962.[9][10]
as editor with
Robert Mayer Lumiansky: Critical approaches to six major English works: Beowulf through Paradise Lost. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1968.
as editor with
Hyder Edward Rollins: Later Renaissance in England : nondramatic verse and prose, 1600-1660 [selected by] Herschel Baker. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1975. 1996 edition. Greenwood Press.
^
abCailliet, Émile (1948). "The Dignity of Man, by Herschel Baker. 365 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1947. $5.00". Theology Today. 5 (3): 433–435.
doi:
10.1177/004057364800500317.
S2CID170810424.
^
abSharrock, Roger (1954). "Reviewed work: The War of Truth: Studies in the Decay of Christian Humanism in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 5 (18): 191–193.
doi:
10.1093/res/V.18.191.
JSTOR510956.
^Sharrock, Roger (1954). "Reviewed work: The War of Truth: Studies in the Decay of Christian Humanism in the Earlier Seventeenth Century by Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 5 (18): 191–193.
doi:
10.1093/res/V.18.191.
JSTOR510956.
^Gettmann, Royal A. (1963). "Reviewed work: William Hazlitt by Herschel Baker". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 62 (3): 692–695.
JSTOR27714332.
^Carnall, Geoffrey (1964). "Reviewed work: William Hazlitt by Herschel Baker". The Review of English Studies. 15 (58): 210–212.
doi:
10.1093/res/XV.58.210.
JSTOR513452.