Ellis, David 1939- (David George Ellis)

PERSONAL:

Born June 23, 1939, in Swinton, England. Education: University of Cambridge, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of English, Rutherford College, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NX, England. E-mail—d.g.ellis@kent.ac.uk.

CAREER:

University of Kent, Canterbury, England, professor emeritus of English literature.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Andrew Mellon Fellowship, National Humanities Center, 1991-92; received various scholarships from the British Academy.

WRITINGS:

Wordsworth, Freud and the Spots of Time: Interpretation in ‘The Prelude’, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

(Author, with Howard Mills) D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction: Art, Thought and Genre, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with Ornella de Zorda) D.H. Lawrence: Critical Assessments, four volumes, Helm Information (Montfield, East Sussex, England), 1992.

(Editor) Imitating Art: Essays in Biography, Pluto Press (Boulder, CO), 1993.

D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930 (third volume of the three-volume "The Cambridge Biography of D.H. Lawrence" series), Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Literary Lives: Biography and the Search for Understanding, Routledge (New York, NY), 2000.

That Man Shakespeare: Icon of Modern Culture, Helm Information (Mountfield, East Sussex, England), 2005.

(Editor) D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love: A Casebook, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Shakespeare's Practical Jokes: An Introduction to the Comic in His Work, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), 2007.

Death and the Author: How D.H. Lawrence Died, and Was Remembered, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Ellis has devoted his professional life to the study of English literature, paying particular attention to twentieth-century authors, and he is considered a leader in the study and criticism of British novelist D.H. Lawrence.

In D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction: Art, Thought and Genre, Ellis examines the travel writing and the material Lawrence produced on psychology, while coauthor Howard Mills considers Lawrence's literary criticism. Both authors argue that, for Lawrence, nonfiction served as an opportunity for experimentation and formed part of his efforts to find a genre that suited his expressive needs. Though Kingsley Widmer in Modern Fiction Studies faulted the book's scholarship and analysis, the critic found the essays "earnest and sometimes sensitive." Modern Language Review contributor Mara Kalnins praised D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction as "discerning, lively, and critically illuminating."

Ellis's four-volume collection D.H. Lawrence: Critical Assessments, which he edited with Ornella de Zorda, includes a chronology of the subject's life, biographical and critical studies, and bibliographies. Also included are essays on Lawrence's poetry, nonfiction, short fiction (including novellas and short stories), and critical responses to these works. Ellis is also the author of the final volume in the Cambridge University Press three-volume biography of Lawrence. D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930 covers the final years of Lawrence's life in 537 pages of text and 250 pages of notes. Lawrence wrote and traveled extensively in his final years, and details of these trips are presented along with accounts of the subject's turbulent personal relationships. Critics praised Ellis for his careful scholarship and insightful commentary. Chris Woodhead in New Statesman found the book "meticulously researched" and noted that "every testament is weighed judiciously, every incident explored from every possible angle." Woodhead concluded: "We are unlikely to have a more definitive account of Lawrence's final years."

Sandra Gilbert wrote in London Review of Books that "Ellis has scrupulously accumulated a host of fascinating details illuminating every facet of the writer's life," making D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930 difficult to put down. As Tony Tanner observed in the Times Literary Supplement, the job of writing this final biographical volume "could not have been better done. It is a most impressive achievement, and fully maintains the quite exemplary high scholarly standards adhered to by the first two volumes."

Ellis also edited D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love: A Casebook, a collection of essays about Lawrence's complex World War I novel, all of which were first published after 1990, with the exception of the essay by Joyce Carol Oates.

Literary Lives: Biography and the Search for Understanding investigates issues Ellis thinks should matter most to biographers. His concern is primarily with how biographers explain the motives of their subjects and with the responsibilities of the biographer. "Biography is not a scientific discipline," he writes, "but then neither should it be one in which anything goes." He argues that the writing of a life must establish facts and also offer reasonable explanation and interpretation of those facts as they have accumulated to form a life. Ellis, according to Hermione Lee in New York Review of Books, "is considering, judicious, somewhat wry, and frequently inconclusive," but Lee does not necessarily consider the latter a shortcoming. She wrote: "In biography, Ellis says, incompatibles don't have to be resolved; ‘totalizing’ biographies make him develop a ‘fondness for loose ends … inconclusiveness and disorder.’"

That Man Shakespeare: Icon of Modern Culture is Ellis's study of William Shakespeare's reputation after his death, in which he notes that, given the lack of factual information about the playwright, much of what has been written about Shakespeare is based on legend. Approaching Shakespeare from a different point of view, Ellis wrote Shakespeare's Practical Jokes: An Introduction to the Comic in His Work. Shakespeare wrote his comedies, but he also used comedy, including practical jokes, in his other plays. Ellis compares the bard's comedy with that of Italian writers and with particular episodes in the work of his English contemporary Ben Johnson.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Biography, summer, 1996, William H. Epstein, review of Imitating Art: Essays in Biography, pp. 304-307; fall, 2001, Catherine N. Parke, review of Literary Lives: Biography and the Search for Understanding, p. 933.

Choice, March, 1989, J.C. Kohl, review of D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction: Art, Thought and Genre, p. 1156; February, 2001, C. Rollyson, review of Literary Lives, p. 1076.

Chronicle of Higher Education, February 9, 2001, Nina C. Ayoub, review of Literary Lives.

Essays in Criticism, October, 2000, Hermione Lee, review of Literary Lives, pp. 297-305.

London Review of Books, March 19, 1998, Sandra Gilbert, review of D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930, pp. 9-10.

Modern Fiction Studies, summer, 1989, Kingsley Widmer, review of D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction, pp. 332-334.

Modern Language Review, January, 1990, Mara Kalnins, review of D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction, pp. 166-168.

New Statesman, January 16, 1996, Chris Woodhead, review of D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, p. 44.

New York Review of Books, April 12, 2001, Hermione Lee, review of Literary Lives, pp. 53-57.

Philosophy and Literature, April, 2001, Michael McClintick, review of Literary Lives, pp. 171-173.

Reference Book Review, 1993, review of D.H. Lawrence: Critical Assessments, pp. 26-27.

Review of English Studies, May, 1990, Karen McLeod Hewitt, review of D.H. Lawrence's Non-Fiction, pp. 285-288.

Spectator, January 24, 1998, William Scammell, review of D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930, pp. 32-34.

Times Literary Supplement, January 9, 1998, Tony Tanner, review of D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game, 1922-1930, pp. 3-4.