MAY, Georges (Claude) 1920-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born October 7, 1920, in Paris, France; died of complications from a heart condition February 28, 2003, in New Haven, CT. Administrator, educator, and author. May was a professor of French language and literature who was also a former dean and provost at Yale University. Educated primarily in his native France, he earned B.S. and B.A. degrees from the University of Paris in 1937, followed by a Licence-es-Lettres in 1941 and a Diplome d'Etudes Superieures from the University of Montpellier the same year. With the onset of World War II May fought with the French Army, and from 1943 to 1945 was affiliated with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. When the war ended he moved to America to take a job as an instructor at Yale University in 1946, and a year later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. May would spend his academic career at Yale, becoming a professor of French in 1956 and the Sterling Professor of French in 1971. From 1963 to 1971 he served as dean of the college and helped remove barriers to admission for women, as well as easing tensions between anti-war demonstrators and the university's R.O.T.C. program. From 1979 to 1981 he was Yale's provost. May remained at Yale as a professor until his retirement in 1991. A specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French literature, especially the works of Enlightenment writers Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, May was the author of numerous books written in French, including L'autobiographie (1979), Les mille et une nuits d'Antoine Galland; ou Le chef-d'oeuvre invisible (1986), and La perruque de Dom Juan; ou Du bon usage des énigmes dans la littérature de l'âge classique (1995). He was also the editor of nine books, including Diderot's Sur Terence (1980), Jean-Jacques Rousseau et Madame de LaTour: correspondence (1998), and Antoine Hamilton's Les quatre facardins (2001).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

New York Times, March 9, 2003, p. A25.

online

Yale University Web site,http://www.yale.edu/ (March 20, 2003).