Ian Donaldson (1935–2020)

Ian Donaldson, FBA FRSE FAHA, was a much-valued member of the Parergon International Editorial Board and foundation Chairman of the Advisory Board for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.

After graduating from Trinity College, University of Melbourne (BA Honours, 1957), and Magdalen and Merton Colleges, Oxford (BA 1961, MA 1964), Ian began his career as Fellow and Lecturer in English at Wadham College, Oxford (1962–1969). At a remarkably young age, he was elected chair of the Oxford English Faculty, and later in his career he became chair of the Cambridge English Faculty (1999–2001), a possibly unique double honour at these august universities with their ancient rivalry. Perhaps only a courteous and diplomatic Australian could manage to satisfy both. In 1969 Ian returned to Australia as Professor of English at the Australian National University (1969–1991), and with apparent inevitability rapidly became Head of Department.

A change which was to be prophetic in his career came in 1974, on Ian’s appointment as founding Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, a post which he held until 1990, and then again from 2004 to 2007. In a kind of interregnum he returned to teaching English, first from 1991–95 holding the Regius Professorship of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University (1991–95; Head of Department, 1992–94; Director, Postgraduate School, 1992). This was a position which, he pointed out with bemusement, was an appointment made by the monarch personally, and was the oldest such chair in the world (instituted 1762 as the Regius Chair in Rhetoric and Belles Lettres). Then in 1995–2002 he moved to Cambridge as Grace 1 Professor of English at Cambridge University and Fellow of King’s College (1995–2002). His experience at the HRC in Canberra richly qualified him to set up a similar research environment as the Founding Director, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, Cambridge University (2001–03) which is still thriving, despite its apparent train wreck acronym, CRASSH. Returning to Australia, Ian became Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne (2007–20), where he continued to research and supervise postgraduates. He was elected President of the Australian Humanities Academy (2007–09). Some of his experiences as a life-long research administrator and leader in the Humanities were drawn together in Taking Stock: The Humanities in Australian Life since 1968, edited with Mark Finnane (The University of Western Australia Publishing, 2012). Through his contribution on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (2011–17), he exerted continuing influence on the Humanities globally. It was a remarkable career, unrivalled in sustained prestige, peer admiration and research leadership.

Ian Donaldson’s primary research field was Renaissance literature, and he was the undisputed world expert on the poet and playwright, Ben Jonson. He was chosen to edit authoritative editions, Ben Jonson: Poems (1975) and Ben Jonson (Oxford Authors, 1985). Those who work in early modern literature will know how massive and comprehensive was Jonson’s oeuvre and how significant he was in his age. Amongst Ian’s monographs were The World Upside-Down: Comedy from Jonson to Fielding (1970), The Rapes of Lucretia: A Myth and its Transformations (1982), and Jonson’s Magic Houses: Essays in Interpretation (1997). He wrote entries on Jonson and others for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, as well as many articles on a variety of topics, including insightful essays on Shakespeare. His own long-awaited and superbly readable biography, Ben Jonson: A Life (2011), hailed as erudite and definitive in historical and literary coverage, was short-listed for the James Tait Black Biography Prize and the H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Prize in 2012. Ian’s musings on the difficulties and craft of literary biography appeared in various essays and in his co-edited book, Shaping Lives: Reflections on Biography (1992), as well as a short monograph The Death of the Author and the Lives of the Poets...