Allardyce Nicoll

John Ramsay Allardyce Nicoll (28 June 1894 – 17 April 1976) was a British literary scholar and teacher.

Allardyce Nicoll (middle) visiting Uppsala University in 1962. To his left, docent Lars Åhnebrink, to his right, professor A. Donner.

Allardyce Nicoll was born in Partick, Glasgow, and educated at Stirling High School and the University of Glasgow, where he was the G. A. Clark scholar in English.[1] He became a lecturer at King's College London in 1920 and took the chair of English at East London College (later Queen Mary's College) in 1923. In 1933 he went to Yale University as professor of the history of drama and dramatic criticism and chair of the drama department. He established a strong graduate programme in theatre history. Around 1943–45 he performed war work at the British embassy in Washington. From 1945 to 1961 he headed the English Department at the University of Birmingham; from 1951 to 1961 he was also founding director of the Shakespeare Institute at Birmingham. He served as president of the Society for Theatre Research from 1958 to 1976.

Research

His major work was his six-volume History of English Drama, 1660–1900, published as separate volumes starting in 1923, and reissued as a set in 1952–59. He also wrote many other books on English drama. He is credited with having made Restoration plays acceptable for scholarly study. When he began teaching in 1923, many colleges forbade Restoration drama on curricula because of its sometimes ribald topics and humorous examples of promiscuity. That changed in the course of the twentieth century.[2]

For many years in the 1950s, he edited Cambridge University Press's Shakespeare Survey. He later turned to Commedia dell'Arte, publishing what reviewer Jack Violi called a brilliant probe.[3]

Personal life

He was married twice and had no children.

References
  1. Stephens, John Russell, "Nicoll, (John Ramsay) Allardyce (1894–1976)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2021. (subscription required)
  2. Scouten, Arthur (1978). "Allardyce Nicoll". Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700. 2 (1): 6.
  3. Violi, Unicio Jack; Nicoll, Allardyce (1964). "The World of Harlequin: A Critical Study of the Commedia dell'Arte". Italica. 41 (4): 461. doi:10.2307/477058. JSTOR 477058.

Bibliography


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