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Francis Otto Matthiessen (February 19, 1902 – April 1, 1950) was an educator, scholar and literary critic influential in the fields of American literature and American studies. His best known work, ''American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman'', celebrated the achievements of several 19th-century American authors and had a profound impact on a generation of scholars. Matthiessen was well known for his support of liberal causes and progressive politics. His contributions to the Harvard University community have been memorialized in several ways, including a recently endowed visiting professorship. ==Early life and education== Matthiessen was born in Pasadena, California on February 19, 1902. He was the fourth of four children born to Frederick William Matthiessen (1868-1948) and Lucy Orne Pratt (1866). The family's three older siblings included Frederick William (1894), George Dwight (1897) and Lucy Orne (1898).〔(The Ancestry and the Descendants of John Pratt of Hartford, Conn ) Retrieved December 21, 2013〕 In Pasadena Matthiessen was a student at Polytechnic School. Following the separation of his parents, he relocated with his mother to his paternal grandparents home in La Salle, Illinois. His grandfather, Frederick William Matthiessen, was an industrial leader in zinc production and a successful manufacturer of clocks and machine tools. Also, he served as mayor of La Salle for ten years.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= newspaper obituary )〕 The grandson completed his secondary education at Hackley School, in Tarrytown, New York. In 1923 Matthiessen graduated from Yale University, where he was managing editor of the Yale Daily News, editor of the Yale Literary Magazine and a member of Skull and Bones.〔(Yale University obituary ) mssa.library.yale.edu, Retrieved December 21, 2013〕 As the recipient of the university's Deforest Prize, Matthiessen titled his oration, ''Servants of the Devil'', in which he proclaimed Yale's administration to be an "''autocracy, ruled by a Corporation out of touch with college life and allied with big business''".〔(Max Lerner: Pilgrim in the Promised Land ), Retrieved December 21, 2013〕 In his final year as a Yale undergraduate, he received the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Biography of F. O. Matthiessen )〕 awarded to the senior ''who through the combination of intellectual achievement, character and personality, shall be adjudged by the faculty to have done the most for Yale by inspiring in classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship.'' He studied at Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar earning a B.Litt. in 1925. At Harvard University, he quickly completed his M.A. in 1926 and Ph.D. degree in 1927. Matthiessen then returned to Yale to teach for two years, before beginning a distinguished teaching career at Harvard. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「F. O. Matthiessen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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