|
IN MEMORIAM
RUTH PRESTON MILLER LEHMANN
Ruth Preston Miller Lehmann, professor
emeritus of English, died April 3, 2000. Ruth came to The University
of Texas at Austin in 1960, was promoted to the rank of associate
professor in 1967, and to professor in 1972, before retiring
in 1980.
Ruth was born on February 18, 1912, in Ithaca, New York, and received BA
(1932) and MA (1934) degrees from Cornell University, where she was elected
to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1942 she was awarded a PhD from the University of
Wisconsin at Madison. She served as an editor of language texts for the
United States Armed Forces Institute in Washington, D.C., during the Second
World War, and thereafter joined the English department at George Washington
University. She later moved to Washington University in St. Louis before
coming to Austin.
The field of Ruth's teaching and scholarship was medieval literature and
linguistics, with a particular focus on Old Irish. Her first book appeared
in 1964, an edition with introduction and glossary of the Old Irish Fled
Dúin na nGéd. In 1975 she published, with her husband,
Winfred Lehmann, An Introduction to Old Irish (New York: Modern
Language Association of America, 1975). A major contribution to the understanding
of a very difficult language, this book helps to make Old Irish literature
accessible to students outside of Ireland. As she explained in an interview: "Students
had been asking me for years to provide something for the student with
no basis in Old Irish. The problem is that books on Old Irish that come
out in Ireland assume students get Irish training in grade school. The
things that they don't explain, we manage to get in here." The book,
which immediately set the standard for the field and is used at universities
across the country, includes literary excerpts as well as an exceptionally
clear presentation of the grammar and syntax. Professor Lehmann was especially
proud of the last section of the book, which is devoted to Irish lyric
poetry and its complicated metrical structure. Her own edition and translation
of Early Irish Verse was subsequently published by The University of Texas
Press in 1988.
Professor Lehmann excelled as a teacher, not only of Old Irish but also
of Modern Irish and Old English. She regularly taught Beowulf, and
in her retirement published a splendid version of the poem: Beowulf:
An Imitative Translation (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1988).
Selections from her translation have been chosen for inclusion in the Columbia
Anthology of British Literature. Here is how she introduces the encounter
between Beowulf and Grendel's mother.
Grendel's mother, a
ghastly creature,
she who must remain remembering troubles
in the dire waters of dreaded torrents,
after Cain became the cruel slayer
of his own brother, offspring of his
father.
She who had defended the flood for
fifty years,
greedy for battle, grim and angry,
sensed already that a certain one
hunted downward toward haunted realm.
She groped toward him, grasped the
warrior
with her cruel claws but might not
cleave open
such a sound body, circled and protected
by buckled breastmail.
As these lines suggest, Professor
Lehmann was an accomplished poet. In 1977 several of her former
students edited a collection of her poetry. The introduction
to this volume includes fond remembrances of Ruth as a teacher
and a person. Solveig M. V. Pflueger, for example, writes of
Ruth in this way:
Anyone who succeeds in mastering
Old Irish must of necessity possess either an unusually keen
mind or infinite patience. Certainly Ruth Lehmann has both.
But while I take her scholarship quite seriously, I always
smile when I think of her as a person. I remember little things
such as the delight she takes in a hummingbird, an amusing
word, a fine piece of craftsmanship, or an enigmatic line of
poetry. This attention to small details that often go unnoticed
by others is what makes her a true scholar, and her willingness
to share these gems with those around her makes her a most
interesting person. I only wish I had more time to visit with
her as I, like everyone who has had a chance to know her, am
always captivated by her inquisitive spirit and refreshing
interest in life.
The collection prefaced by such
deeply-felt comments contains, in addition to original poems,
translations from Old Irish and Old English, including a selection
from Beowulf that anticipates the later complete translation.
Shortly before she died, Ruth ventured into fiction with a novel
about Sir Galahad titled Blessed Bastard. Based on a range of
medieval sources,
the novel rescues Galahad from Tennyson and offers us a sympathetic hero
caught between his faith and his fate. As Professor Lehmann expresses this
in her Forward: "The problem of Galahad is to present a man of whom Lancelot
would genuinely be proud. . . . To that end this story introduces the most
appealing of devotional literatures, the Irish. Here not only is there
appreciation of the wonder of the world, but often humor." The hero
of the narrative shares with its author these qualities of wonder and humor,
so often noted by students in Professor Lehmann's Old Irish and Old English
courses, which are described as "unforgettable" (Douglas MacLean), "splendid" (Tom
Cable), "delightful" (GayMarie Logsdon), and "exemplifying the highest
standards of the academic profession" (Marianne Cooley). For her legacy
in Old Irish, for her many contributions as a teacher and scholar, the
English department will always be grateful, counting Ruth Lehmann as one
of its most distinguished members.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This memorial resolution was prepared
by a special committee consisting of Professors James D. Garrison
(chair), Mary E. Blockley, and Thomas M. Cable.
A Copy of the list of publications is available on request from the Office
of the General Faculty, FAC 22, F9500.
|
