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Joan Bennett (literary scholar)

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Died
  
1986

Parents
  
Julia Frankau, Arthur Frankau

Siblings
  
Gilbert Frankau, Ronald Frankau, Jack Frankau

Grandparents
  
Hyman Davis, Joseph Frankau

Nieces
  
Rosemary Frankau, Pamela Frankau, Roberta Frankau

Similar
  
Gilbert Frankau, Ronald Frankau, Julia Frankau, Pamela Frankau

Joan Bennett (1896–1986), also known as Joan Frankau and born Aline Frankau, was a Cambridge literary scholar and critic. She was among the "constellation of critics" called by the defence in the Lady Chatterley Trial of D. H. Lawrence.

Contents

Life and career

Bennett was the daughter of London cigar importer Arthur Frankau (1849-1904) and writer Julia Frankau (1859-1916). Though she was known as Joan throughout her life, she was christened Aline. She married the Cambridge literary historian Henry Stanley Bennett (1889-1972) in 1920.

As a don at Girton College, Cambridge, Bennett wrote one of the first critical studies of Virginia Woolf.

As one of the expert witnesses in the Lady Chatterley Trial, she helped counter the arguments of the prosecution by confirming Lawrence's reputation as a novelist, that the work was more than a description of sexual encounters, and that Lawrence's repeated use of ‘four-letter words’ were justified by literary intent. Bennett's mother had earlier been credited by Mrs Belloc Lowndes with having been "one of the very few to recognise the genius of D. H. Lawrence".

Works

Publications by Joan Bennett include—

  • Four Metaphysical Poets – Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Cambridge University Press 1934
  • Virginia Woolf – Her Art as a Novelist, Cambridge University Press 1945
  • George Eliot – Her Mind and her Art, Cambridge University Press 1948
  • Sir Thomas Browne – "A Man of Achievement in Literature", Cambridge University Press 1962
  • Five Metaphysical Poets – Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Marvell, Cambridge University Press 1964
  • References

    Joan Bennett (literary scholar) Wikipedia


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