biography
| name: |
Child, Francis James
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1825–96)
|
| biography:
| Philologist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He studied at Harvard, where with the exception of two years' study in Germany he remained on the faculty until his death, teaching rhetoric, oratory, and English literature. His most important scholarly contributions include his five-volume edition of Spenser's Poetical Works (1855), for many years the authoritative text, and seminal papers on the language and versification of Chaucer (1863) and Gower (1873). Working from variant manuscript sources, he pioneered a comparative approach to folklore in English and Scottish Popular Ballads (10 vols, 1883–98). Known as the Child Ballads, this collection provided the basis for ballad studies, and remains the most complete work of its kind. |
|
|
