Sir Frank Kermode

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Sir Frank Kermode , 1919–2010, English critic, b. Douglas, Isle of Man. Educated at Liverpool Univ. (grad. 1940) and a lieutenant in the Royal Navy during World War II, Kermode was one of the most distinguished critics of his generation. He taught at numerous universities, including Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia, and University College London, and was the author or editor of more than 50 volumes covering an extremely wide range of literary subject matter. He is best known for his studies of Shakespeare (1963–65) and D. H. Lawrence (1973), his editorship of The Oxford Anthology of English Literature (2 vol. 1973), and his provocative studies The Sense of an Ending (1967, repr. 2000), The Genesis of Secrecy (1979), and The Art of Telling (1983). Later works include the memoir Not Entitled (1995), the best-selling Shakespeare's Language (2000), the essays in Pieces of My Mind (2003), and Concerning E. M. Forster (2009). He was knighted in 1991.

Bibliography: See studies by J. Gorak (1987), M. Tudeau-Clayton and M. Warner, ed. (1991), and C. J. Knight (2003).