Irving Ribner papers

Irving Ribner, noted Shakespearean critic, joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1964 as an assistant professor in the English Department after eleven years on the faculty of Tulane University. He later became the H. Rodney Sharp Professor of English at Delaware. Ribner also lectured at Cambridge University and at the Sorbonne, and was a visiting scholar at the University of New York, the University of North Carolina, the University of Southern California, and the University of Arizona.

Dr. Ribner graduated from Brooklyn College in 1943 and began his graduate study at the University of North Carolina. After serving in the Army Signal Corp during World War II, he continued his studies at the University of North Carolina and received his PhD in 1949. Following his graduate education Dr. Ribner taught at Ohio State University and Queens College prior to teaching at Tulane.

Dr. Ribner wrote more than fifty articles on the literature of the English Renaissance and authored nine books, including The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (1965),Jacobean Tragedy; the Quest for Moral Order(1962), Poetry: A Critical and Historical Introduction (1962), andTudor and Stuart Drama(1966). He also edited an edition of Christopher Marlowe's plays, a collection of English poetry, and a revision of George L. Kittredge's Shakespeare.

In addition to being elected to several offices of the Modern Language Association, Ribner served as the head of the Association of Shakespeare section. Dr. Ribner died on July 2, 1972.

Information sheet by the Office of Alumni and Public Relations, December 1965. University of Delaware Archives.