Gerald Eades Bentley

Gerald Eades Bentley (September 15, 1901 – July 25, 1994) was an American academic and literary scholar, best remembered for his The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, published by Oxford University Press in seven volumes between 1941 and 1968. That work, modeled on the classic four-volume work The Elizabethan Stage by Edmund Kerchever Chambers, has itself become a standard and essential reference work on English Renaissance theatre.

Bentley was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a Methodist clergyman. Originally intending to be a creative writer, he switched his career plans to literary scholarship during his graduate studies. He earned his B.A. at DePauw University (1923), his M.A. in English at the University of Illinois (1926), and his Ph.D. at the University of London (1929), studying under Allardyce Nicoll. Bentley taught at the University of Chicago from 1929-1945 before serving as Murray Professor of English at Princeton University from 1945 until his retirement in 1970.

Bentley was married to Esther Felt from 1927 until her death in 1961. In 1965, Bentley married Ellen Voigt Stern, who died in 1990.

In addition to his Jacobean and Caroline Stage, Bentley wrote a wide range of works on Shakepeare and other figures of the English Renaissance. His essay "Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre," originally published in the inaugural issue of the Shakespeare Survey in 1948, has been widely reprinted. Bentley edited several works for modern editions, including Othello, The Alchemist, and the 1577 text The Art of Angling.

Bentley's son and namesake, Gerald Eades Bentley Jr., became a noted literary scholar in his own right, specializing in the career and works of William Blake.

G. E. Bentley: selected works

• Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared (1945)
• Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook (1961)
• Shakespeare and His Theatre (1964)
• The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time, 1590–1642 (1971)

References

• Frye, Roland Mushat. "Gerald Eades Bentley" (obituary). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 140, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 78-85.