Content area
Full Text
Maynard Mack died on March 17, 2001, at the age of 90. As a scholar, he dominated two distinct fields in English Literature, Shake- speare and the eighteenth century, for at least forty years. He was Chairman of the Yale Department of English, president of the Modern Language Association, consultant to the BBC series of Shakespeare plays on film, and founding director of the National Humanities Center. Among his many publications, those for which eighteenth-century scholars are most grateful include three major works on Pope: a philosophically precise and deeply learned introduction to the Twickenham edition of An Essay on Man; a richly illustrated study of the poet's self -fashioning, The Garden and the City; and a full-scale biography, Alexander Pope: A Life. Some of his short essays, such as "The World of Hamlet" and "The Muse of Satire," have had more influence on how we think about literature than most critical books.
I took Professor Mack's graduate seminar on Shakespeare in 1972, the last year he taught at Yale. On the first day, he asked us whether we had come "to see the old fox run to earth at last" - a remark betraying his awareness that his departure from the classroom distinctly marked the end of an era at Yale and in literary studies. Most of the students around...