Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie facts for kids
Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (born May 9, 1907 – died March 23, 1970) was an American expert in Anglo-Saxon literature. He taught English at Columbia University for many years. Anglo-Saxon literature is very old English writing from long ago.
Contents
Early Life
Elliott Dobbie was born in Brooklyn, New York City. This happened in 1907.
School and Teaching Career
Studying at Columbia University
Dobbie went to Columbia University for his studies. He earned his first degree, a bachelor's, in 1927. Then, in 1929, he got a top-level master's degree in American Literature.
Teaching English
He started teaching English in Long Island in 1929. Later, in 1934, he came back to teach at Columbia University. In 1937, he earned his PhD, which is a very high degree. He then became an Instructor at the university. Over the years, he moved up to Assistant Professor in 1942. He became an Associate Professor in 1945 and a full Professor in 1951.
Working on Old English Poetry
While he was studying and teaching, Dobbie helped George Philip Krapp. They worked on a big project called Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. This was a six-book collection of Old English poetry. It is still seen as the main collection of these old poems.
Krapp worked on the first three books. These included The Junius Manuscript (1931) and The Vercelli Book (1932). He also worked on The Paris Psalter and Meters of Boethius (1932). When Krapp passed away, Dobbie took over the project. Dobbie finished Krapp's work on The Exeter Book in 1936. He then edited two more books by himself. These were The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems (1942) and Beowulf and Judith (1953). He also wrote articles for the first Columbia Encyclopedia. These articles included ones about famous writers like Shakespeare and Chaucer.
Work with American Speech Journal
Dobbie also spent a long time working with the journal American Speech. He started as an assistant editor in 1939. He became an associate editor for a year. From 1942 to 1947, he was the managing editor. He sometimes had disagreements about how to edit articles. But the journal still ran well during his time there. After that, he was an associate editor again for three years. He was also on the editorial board from 1952 to 1965.
Knowledge of Languages
As a philologist, Dobbie studied languages and their history. He knew at least the basics of many different languages:
Other Roles
Dobbie was part of the Executive Committee for the Linguistic Circle of New York. He was the Vice President from 1955 to 1957. Then he became President from 1958 to 1960. In 1948, he received a special award called a Guggenheim Fellowship.
He also led the executive committee for Columbia's Italian department twice. He did this for a year in 1957. Then he led it again from 1960 to 1963. In 1966, he was the acting chairman for the English department.
Personal Life
In 1937, Dobbie married Mary Lorraine Kout. She also worked in the English department at Columbia. Mary helped edit the second edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia. They had a son named William.
Elliott Dobbie passed away at his home on March 23, 1970. He had been sick for a short time.
