Love, Harold 1937–

(Harold Halford Russell Love)

PERSONAL: Born 1937. Education: University of Queensland, B.A.; Cambridge University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—c/o Department of English, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia. E-mail—harold.love@arts.monash.edu.au.

CAREER: Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, worked as professor of English, now professor emeritus.

MEMBER: Australian Academy of the Humanities (fellow), British Academy (fellow).

WRITINGS:

(With Mary Lord) John Dryden in Australian Libraries: A Checklist of Pre-1800 Holdings, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), 1972.

Congreve, Blackwell (Oxford), 1974; Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 1975.

The Golden Age of Australian Opera: W.S. Lyster and His Companies, 1861–1880, Currency (Sydney, Australia), 1981.

James Edward Neild: Victorian Virtuoso, International Specialized Book (Portland, OR), 1989.

Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1993, published as The Culture and Commerce of Texts: Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1998.

Attributing Authorship: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

English Clandestine Satire, 1660–1702, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor of introduction and notes to Poeta de tristibus, or The Poet's Complaint (1682), William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California (Los Angeles, CA), 1971.

EDITOR

The Penguin Book of Restoration Verse, Penguin (Baltimore, MD), 1968, revised edition, 1997.

(And contributor) Restoration Literature: Critical Approaches, Methuen (London, England), 1972.

The Australian Stage: A Documentary History, New South Wales University (Kensington, Australia), 1984.

(With Robert Jordan) The Works of Thomas Southerne, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Harold Love has written extensively on seventeenth-century English literature and has edited many books highlighting the work of authors of that period. Restoration Literature: Critical Approaches is a collection of eleven essays on the value of Restoration drama, poetry, and satire. One fourth of the book is devoted to seventeenth-century English poet John Dryden. A Choice reviewer called William Cameron's essay on Dryden's political views after 1688 "most interesting and original." A Times Literary Supplement reviewer wrote that Love "has constructed a case for his contributors which is a good deal less than convincing. 'The Restoration,' he tells us, 'marks the strongest assertion in post-medieval times of what we might call the Mediterranean component in British cultures,' and he sees himself and his Australian colleagues as 'participants in or observers of a culture which, for rather different reasons, has witnessed a class of warm and cold-latitude values.'" In addition to Love himself, contributors include Andrew Bear, Robert Jordan, Philip Parsons, Michael Wilding, Francis King, Harold Brooks, K.G. Hamilton, John Fowler, Mark O'Connor, and William J. Cameron. The Times Literary Supplement reviewer called the volume "refreshingly free from pretentiousness and critical jargon." A Booklist reviewer called Restoration Literature "a vigorous critical collection."

Love considers the four comedies of the playwright in Congreve and notes their relation to Restoration theater. He provides a theatrical background and criticisms of the time to present day. A Choice reviewer noted that Love considers the themes of the comedies as a measure of the "way of the world…. His analyses and arguments, models of clarity, are most persuasive." Robert D. Hume wrote in Philological Quarterly that Love "is quite aware of the importance of seeing these comedies as plays in context, but his account treats them equally as pieces for reading. This approach would certainly have pleased Congreve."

Notes reviewer Stanley Boorman called Love's Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England "a fascinating book, full of ideas and theories about the distinctions between scribal and printed publication, and about their implications for contemporaries. Its avowed subjects are specific English repertories, including viol consort music—but its application ranges widely for the musicologist, including the obvious repertories—seventeenth-century cantatas, keyboard anthologies, the nineteenth-century manuscript production of Italian opera, and even, as Harold Love implies, medieval and later scriptoria of all sorts."

The book is divided into three sections. Boorman wrote that in the first, "Publication in the Scribal Medium," Love "asserts that, even this late, some authors (including composers) wrote primarily for scribal transmission…. He goes on to analyze and extend the definition of publication." In the second section, "Script and Society," Boorman said Love "begins with a survey of recent positions on 'presence' and the text, and on the hierarchies between oral, script, and printed texts. This draws heavily on the work of Walter Ong and makes reference to, among others, both Jacques Derrida and Jonathan Goldberg." Boorman concluded by saying that "the range of topics covered, the thought processes involved, and the manner in which so many apply to processes of musical dissemination all make this a book to be read by as many musicologists and music bibliographers as possible."

Peter S. Graham wrote in Renaissance Quarterly that Love's book "is rich in detailed discussions of writings, techniques, and processes. His wide scholarly reading is matched by sensitivity both in his interpretations and in his theorizing." In a Times Literary Supplement review, John Barnard called Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England "a bold and timely book…. An understanding of the prevalence and the workings of scribal publication is therefore of importance to seventeenth-century scholars in all disciplines."

The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester contains a discussion of the uncertainties surrounding poet John Wilmot and his writing. Claude Rawson, in his Times Literary Supplement review, wrote that the commentary "is admirable, with magisterial coverage of political background, court doings, and social mores…. There has never before been an edition so fully and learnedly annotated and so wisely and thoughtfully conceived."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Australian Book Review, June 1991, review of James Edward Neild: Victorian Virtuoso, p. 43.

Booklist, November 1, 1972, review of Restoration Literature: Critical Approaches, p. 225.

Choice, March, 1973, review of Restoration Literature, pp. 94-95; November, 1975, review of Congreve, pp. 1168-1170.

Library, December, 1994, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 342.

Modern Philology, February, 1996, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 381.

Notes, March, 1995, Stanley Boorman, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 899-902.

Philological Quarterly, July, 1973, review of Restoration Literature, p. 442; fall, 1976, Robert D. Hume, "Studies in English Drama, 1660–1800," p. 466.

Renaissance Quarterly, autumn, 1996, Peter S. Graham, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 663-664.

Review of English Studies, May, 1973, review of Restoration Literature, p. 213; November, 1995, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 572.

Seventeenth-Century News, fall, 1994, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 57.

Sixteenth Century Journal, summer, 1994, review of Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 435.

Times Literary Supplement, October 13, 1972, "The Sunshine Style of the Seventeenth Century," p. 1216; July 22, 1994, John Barnard, "Texts for Those Intended," p. 23; September 17, 1999, Claude Rawson, "The Soft Wanton God: Rochester's Obscenities, Acerbity and His Surprising Geniality," pp. 3-4.