Philip Thody
Philip Malcolm Waller Thody (1928-1999) was an English scholar of French literature, Professor of French Literature at Leeds University from 1965 until 1993.[1] He translated and edited work by Albert Camus and Lucien Goldmann, and wrote book-length studies of writers including Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Marcel Proust, Aldous Huxley and Roland Barthes.
Life
Philip Thody was born in Lincoln on 21 March 1928. Educated in Lincoln, he studied French at King's College London. He then lived in Paris for two years, writing a thesis on 'The Vogue of the American Novel in France since 1944', and spent a year as a lecteur at the Sorbonne. In 1954 he married Joy Woodin, and they would have four children. In 1956 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer, and later Lecturer, at Queen's University Belfast. In 1965 he was appointed Professor of French Literature at Leeds University, and held the post until retirement in 1993. He died in Leeds on 15 June 1999.[1]
Works
- Albert Camus: a study of his work, 1957
- The Fifth French Republic: presidents, politics and personalities, 1960
- Jean-Paul Sartre, 1960
- Sartre: a biographical introduction, 1960
- Jean-Paul Sartre: a literary and political study, 1960
- (ed.) Notebooks, 1935-1942 by Albert Camus, 1963
- (tr.) The hidden God; a study of tragic vision in the Pensées of Pascal and the tragedies of Racine by Lucien Goldmann, 1964
- (ed.) Lyrical and critical essays by Albert Camus, 1967
- Jean Genet: a study of his novels and plays, 1968
- Huxley: a biographical introduction, 1973
- Roland Barthes: a conservative estimate, 1977
- Marcel Proust, 1980
- Le Franglais: forbidden English, forbidden American: law, politics, and language in contemporary France: a study in loan words and national identity, 1995
- Introducing Barthes, 1997
- Introducing Sartre, 1998
References
- ^ a b Howard Evans, Obituary: Professor Philip Thody, The Independent, 21 June 1999.