Caroline Brady (philologist)

Caroline Brady
Black and white photograph of Caroline Brady
Caroline Brady c. 1952
Born Caroline Agnes Brady
October 1905
Tientsin, China
Died Before 1984
Nationality American
Occupation Philologist
Years active 1933–1983
Notable work The Legends of Ermanaric (1943); three articles on Beowulf (1952, 1979, 1983)

Caroline Agnes Brady (October 1905 – before 1984) was an American philologist whose scholarship focused on Old English and Old Norse works. Among other places she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University, where she was named the Marion Talbot Fellow of the American Association of University Women. She published a number of works, most notably the book The Legends of Ermanaric and three influential papers on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.

Early life and education

1920 Black and White photograph of the Bessie Dollar at dock in Valcouver
S.S. Bessie Dollar at dock in Vancouver in 1920

Caroline Agnes Brady was born in October 1905 in Tientsin, China,[1][2][3] to Col. David John Brady, an engineer, and Maude Short Brady.[4][5][6] She was the first of two children, and had a sister, Frances Maud Brady.[4][7] Her father, the son of British emigrants,[8] had been raised in Austin, Texas, and traveled as the army took him.[9][10] His two brothers, John W. and Will P. Brady—Caroline Brady's uncles—both become prominent Texas attorneys and jurists.[11][12] Will P. Brady worked as the first district attorney of Reeves County, Texas,[13] and later as a judge of the county court in El Paso.[12] John W. Brady rose to prominence within Austin, and Texas generally, as an assistant attorney general and judge, before killing his mistress in 1929 and being sentenced to three years in prison;[11]

In May 1910, when Brady was four, her family arrived in Los Angeles, California, via Shanghai, aboard the steamer Bessie Dollar.[14] The ship carried only two families and a woman traveling alone, in addition to a cargo of pig iron, and had what the Los Angeles Herald described as "a rough voyage across the Pacific"; a week before arriving in Los Angeles, she struck a whale.[14] Though the paper described Brady's father as a Standard Oil engineer,[14] by World War I he was serving overseas, in France and Germany as first a captain and then a major.[9][10] During these years, until about August 1919, Caroline Brady and her family stayed with her uncle, John W. Brady, in his large Austin house.[8][9][10]

In 1928 Brady received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California at Los Angeles,[15][16] and a year later received a Master of Arts from the school's Berkeley campus.[1] By 1930 she had begun her Ph.D., also at Berkeley,[17] and graduated in 1935, with the thesis The Legends of Ermanaric.[18][19][20]

David Brady died in late January 1953,[5] and his wife in November 1959.[6] Caroline Brady was referred to as "the late Caroline Brady" in 1983.[21][22] Frances Brady, by then Frances Brady Ackley, died on 14 December 1993; her obituary mentioned only cousins among her survivors.[23]

Name

Black and white scan of the program for Caroline Brady's dissertation defense
Programme of the Final Examination for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Caroline Agnes von Egmont Brady (1935)

Brady is occasionally referred to as Caroline Agnes Von Egmont Brady.[18][24][25] Though her published output universally refers to her as either "Caroline A. Brady" or "Caroline Brady," the program for her dissertation defense names her "Caroline Agnes Von Egmont Brady".[18] Several library entries and membership lists of the Modern Language Association also use the longer name.[24][25]

Career

The same year that Brady received her Ph.D.,[26] she became an English instructor at the College of Agriculture at the University of California.[27][28] Brady was promoted on 13 July 1941 to assistant professor of languages and literature at the Berkeley campus.[29] In 1943, Brady's "completely rewritten" dissertation was published as The Legends of Ermanaric.[30] Brady continued teaching at Berkeley until 1946.[31] Thereafter, she taught for three years at the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor of English.[31][26][32]

In 1949 Brady moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon,[33] as one of the four inaugural instructors for the newly opened Central Oregon Community College.[31][34] The college had campuses at both Bend and Klamath Falls; Brady taught at both,[33][35] offering courses in English Composition and Survey of English Literature.[36][37][38][39] After only a few months in the position however, Brady's resignation due to "ill health" was announced.[40]

Brady had begun work at Harvard by 1953.[41][note 1] In 1952–53, she was named the Marion Talbot Fellow of the American Association of University Women.[41][45][46]

By 1979, Brady appears to have returned to California.[47] That year, she published the second piece in her Beowulf trilogy, 'Weapons' in Beowulf.[48] The final work in the trilogy, 'Warriors' in Beowulf, was published posthumously in 1983.[21][49]

Critical appraisal

Brady's book The Legends of Ermanaric suggested that the Gothic king Ermanaric, who ruled in the fourth century AD, was the subject of two competing traditions: one, in Ostrogothic lore, viewing him as a good king, and a second, promulgated by those subjugated by him, as evil.[50][51] Brady was noted as "a broad and discriminating investigator",[52] in addition to having "a sovereign disregard of established opinion."[53] This "disregard" caused one reviewer to label Brady's work "more valuable in the sphere of criticism than construction",[54] and another to note that her "conclusions are reached without reliance on the views of predecessors, and one may be sure that, in some quarters, the volume will be thoroughly combed for flaws to match those it has uncovered in the reasoning of others."[52] Indeed, after Brady's "vigorous tilting with no less a scholar than Kemp Malone",[55] the latter penned two separate reviews disparaging her scholarship.[56][57][note 2] Others shared concerns with Brady's thesis without being so dismissive, including one who termed the book "without doubt one of the most important works in that difficult subject of heroic legend that has come from American scholarship in recent years."[59]

Brady's 1979 and 1983 articles on the words used to describe weapons and warriors in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf suggested that, unlike the interchangeability of words used for other subjects such as strong drink,[60] the words used to describe weapons[61] and warriors[62] were precisely tailored to fit their specific contexts.[60] Taken with her 1952 article The Synonyms for "Sea" in Beowulf, these are described by A Beowulf Handbook as "three fundamental studies" that examine the context in which the Beowulf poet chose a word rather than simply the word itself.[63] As Brady concluded, "this poet is no artificer mechanically piling up synonyms and conventional metaphors, but an artist who knows how to use a variety of words and phrases."[64] Her approach was considered "philological in the traditional sense" and to have shed light on "the shades of meaning of the diction" used in the poem.[65]

Publications

In addition to her book and the Beowulf articles, Brady published a number of other works during her career, some of which are listed below. She also read a number of papers, including some which ultimately went unpublished, at academic conferences—notably at meetings of the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast[66][27] and the Modern Language Association.[67][68][69][70]

Books

  • Brady, Caroline (September 1935). The Legends of Ermanaric (Ph.D.). University of California, Berkeley.
  • Brady, Caroline (1943). The Legends of Ermanaric. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 878278262.

Articles

  • Brady, Caroline (November 1933). "A Note on the Historical Prototype of Sigfried". Modern Philology. University of Chicago Press. 31 (2): 195–196. JSTOR 433891.
  • Brady, Caroline (1937). The Eormanric of the Wīdsīð. University of California Publications in English. III. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Brady, Caroline (April 1938). "Becca of the Banings". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. University of Illinois Press. XXXVII (2): 169–188. JSTOR 27704379.
  • Brady, Caroline (April 1939). "The Date and Metre of the Hamðismál". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. University of Illinois Press. XXXVIII (2): 201–216. JSTOR 27704484.
  • Brady, Caroline (October 1940). "Innweorud Earmanrices". Speculum. University of Chicago Press. XV (4): 454–459. JSTOR 2853463.
  • Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist & Brady, Caroline (November 1940). "Sundrmœðri—Sammœðra". Scandinavian Studies and Notes. Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. XVI (4): 133–137. JSTOR 40908177.
  • Brady, Caroline (December 1940). "Óðinn and the Norse Jǫrmunrekkr-Legend". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. LV (4): 910–930. JSTOR 458885.
  • Brady, Caroline (1952a). "The Synonyms for "Sea" in Beowulf". Studies in Honor of Albert Morey Sturtevant (PDF). Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press. pp. 22–46.
  • Brady, Caroline (June 1952b). "The Old English Nominal Compounds in -rád". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. LXVII (4): 538–571. JSTOR 459826.
  • Brady, Caroline (1979). "'Weapons' in Beowulf: an analysis of the nominal compounds and an evaluation of the poet's use of them". Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. 8: 79–141. doi:10.1017/S0263675100003045.
  • Brady, Caroline (1983). "'Warriors' in Beowulf: an analysis of the nominal compounds and an evaluation of the poet's use of them". Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. 11: 199–246. doi:10.1017/S0263675100002611.
  • Brady, Caroline. "Kings Frotho I-V: A Study in Saxo's Historical Method". Unpublished. [69][70]

Reviews

  • Brady, Caroline (January–June 1941). "The Orkneyinga Saga by Alexander Burt Taylor". The Journal of American Folklore. American Folklore Society. 54 (211–212): 90–92. JSTOR 535815.
  • Brady, Caroline (April 1951). "Walter of Aquitaine: Materials for the Study of His Legend by F. P. Magoun, Jr. & H. M. Smyser". Speculum. University of Chicago Press. XXVI (2): 397–401. JSTOR 2852428.
  • Brady, Caroline (November 1955). "The Digressions in Beowulf. by Adrien Bonjour". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LXX (7): 521–524. JSTOR 3039650.

Notes

  1. ↑ In his January 1955 review of her work The Synonyms for "Sea" in Beowulf, Adrien Bonjour noted that "Miss Brady has now been working for some time at Harvard—let us hope that she will soon publish more about the ways of the word in Beowulf".[42] (This comment has been described as "a barely veiled and kind of underhanded jab" directed at Francis Peabody Magoun, "the obvious Harvard Anglo-Saxonist").[43] That November Brady reviewed one of Bonjour's works in turn.[44]
  2. ↑ Malone stated, for example, that "[t]he faults of this book, and of Miss Brady's papers in the same field, are those of immaturity. The author has not yet lived with the old texts long enough, and does not yet know them intimately well enough. Moreover, her judgment has not yet been sharpened by long experience in research, and she overestimates the worth of debaters' points."[58]

References

  1. 1 2 AAUW Fellowship Awards 1952, p. 226.
  2. ↑ "Caroline Brady: Canada Census, 1911". FamilySearch.
  3. ↑ "Caroline A Brady: United States Census, 1940". FamilySearch.
  4. 1 2 "U.C. Language Instructor Leaves for Eastern Session". The Los Angeles Times. 26 December 1938. p. 30 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 "BRADY, Col. David John". The Los Angeles Times. 28 January 1953. p. 17 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 "BRADY, Maud Short". The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. 24 November 1959. p. C7 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Brady 1943, p. v.
  8. 1 2 "Brady House – 1915". Ancestry Library. Judges Hill Historic District. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  9. 1 2 3 "Major Brady Will Return Home Soon". Statesman. 48 (115). Austin, Texas. 27 July 1919. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 3 "Major Brady to Return from Overseas in August". Austin American. Austin, Texas. 27 July 1919. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. 1 2 "John Brady, Legal Figure, Dies at 74". The Austin Statesman. 73 (81). Austin, Texas. 17 December 1943. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. 1 2 "William Paul Brady". Find A Grave. 21 September 2011.
  13. ↑ "Will Brady Appointed New District Attorney". The Austin Statesman. 40 (35). Austin, Texas. 4 February 1909. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. 1 2 3 "Japanese Woman Worried". Los Angeles Herald. XXXVII (228). Los Angeles, California. 17 May 1910. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Register 1927–28. 2. Berkeley: University of California. November 1928.
  16. ↑ The Southern Campus. Los Angeles: Associated Students of the University of California at Los Angeles. 1928. pp. 72, 345.
  17. ↑ "Military Affair". Los Angeles Times. L (228). Los Angeles, California. 4 January 1931. p. III-5 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. 1 2 3 Brady 1935.
  19. ↑ "Degrees, Certificates Given 306 Students of U. of C." Oakland Tribune. 22 October 1935. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ "Record Number Completes U. C. Graduate Division Work". Oakland Tribune. 23 May 1936. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. 1 2 Anglo-Saxon England Contents 1983.
  22. ↑ O'Donoghue 1986, p. 238.
  23. ↑ "ACKLEY, Frances Brady". Obituaries/Funeral Announcements. The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. 15 December 1993. p. A24.
  24. 1 2 "The Eormanric of the Wīdsīð". Harvard Library. Harvard University. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  25. 1 2 MLA Members 1941, p. 1401.
  26. 1 2 "KF Community College Has Competent Faculty". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 7 September 1949. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. 1 2 "U. C. Students to Give Papers". Oakland Tribune. 26 November 1936. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ↑ "New Residents of College Town Feted at Party". Woodland Daily Democrat. Woodland, CA. 28 August 1936 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ↑ "73 Members of U.C. Faculty Promoted". Oakland Tribune. 13 July 1941. p. A-7 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ↑ Brady 1943, p. vii.
  31. 1 2 3 "Community College to Offer Full Freshman Work in Klamath Falls Session". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, OR. 25 August 1949. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ↑ "Arriving Soon for College". The Bend Bulletin. Bend, OR. 26 August 1949. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. 1 2 "Central Oregon Community College Teachers Commute". The Bend Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. 2 September 1949. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ↑ "Final Plans for Oregon's First Community College". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 17 September 1949. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  35. ↑ "Central Oregon College Registration Now Totals 107". The Bend Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. 20 September 1949. pp. 1, 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  36. ↑ "College Fall Term Begins Here Tonight". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 19 September 1949. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  37. ↑ "Community College Classes Start Monday, Sept. 19". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 19 September 1949. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  38. ↑ "Community College Classes NOW OPEN". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 21 September 1949. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ↑ "Community College Classes NOW OPEN". Herald and News. Klamath Falls, Oregon. 26 September 1949. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  40. ↑ "Will Teach Here: New Instructor Coming to Bend". The Bend Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. 28 December 1949. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  41. 1 2 MLA Members 1953, p. 77.
  42. ↑ Bonjour 1955, p. 115.
  43. ↑ Remein 2016, p. 9.
  44. ↑ Brady 1955, p. 524.
  45. ↑ Brady 1952a, p. 22.
  46. ↑ "College Staff, Students, are Honored at Reception". The Bend Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. 11 October 1949. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  47. ↑ Anglo-Saxon England Contents 1979.
  48. ↑ Brady 1979.
  49. ↑ Brady 1983.
  50. ↑ Malone 1944a, p. 183.
  51. ↑ Malone 1944b, p. 449.
  52. 1 2 Wahlgren 1944, p. 249.
  53. ↑ Wahlgren 1944, p. 248.
  54. ↑ Girvan 1944, p. 404.
  55. ↑ Rypins 1945, p. 226.
  56. ↑ Malone 1944a.
  57. ↑ Malone 1944b.
  58. ↑ Malone 1944a, pp. 187–188.
  59. ↑ Souers 1945, p. 507.
  60. 1 2 Frank 1987, p. 343.
  61. ↑ Brady 1979, pp. 140–141.
  62. ↑ Brady 1983, pp. 240–241.
  63. ↑ Bjork & Niles 1997, p. 90.
  64. ↑ Brady 1952a, p. 44.
  65. ↑ Bjork & Niles 1997, pp. 90–91.
  66. ↑ APA Proceedings 1936, p. xcv.
  67. ↑ "MLA Convention Statistics". Modern Language Association. 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  68. ↑ "Interesting Women U. of C. Instructor On Mission East". The San Bernardino County Sun. San Bernardino, California. 24 December 1938. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  69. 1 2 MLA Publications 1939.
  70. 1 2 "Many U.C. Faculty Members Called to Important Meets". Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California. 27 December 1939. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.

Bibliography

Books

  • Bjork, Robert E. & Niles, John D., eds. (November 1997). A Beowulf Handbook. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1237-2.

Magazines and academic journals

  • Bonjour, Adrien (January 1955). "On Sea Images in Beowulf". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. University of Illinois Press. LIV (1): 111–115. JSTOR 27706524.
  • "Contents". Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. 8: v–vi. 1979. doi:10.1017/S0263675100002982.
  • "Contents". Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. 11: v–vi. 1983. doi:10.1017/S0263675100002519.
  • "Fellowship Awards, 1952–53". Journal of the American Association of University Women. American Association of University Women. 45 (4): 225–230. May 1952. ISSN 0001-0278.
  • Frank, Roberta (Summer 1987). "Did Anglo-Saxon Audiences have a Skaldic Tooth?". Scandinavian Studies. Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. 59 (3): 338–355. JSTOR 40918869.
  • Girvan, Ritchie (October 1944). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". The Modern Language Review. Modern Humanities Research Association. XXXIX (4): 403–404. JSTOR 3716937.
  • "List of Members of the Modern Language Association of America". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. LXIVIII (4 (part 2, Supplement)): 68–169. September 1953. JSTOR 2698988.
  • "List of Members of the Modern Language Association of America". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. LVI (Supplement): 1417–1524. 1941. JSTOR 459009.
  • Malone, Kemp (March 1944a). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LIX (3): 183–185. JSTOR 2910880.
  • Malone, Kemp (October 1944b). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. University of Illinois Press. XLIII (4): 449–453. JSTOR 27705152.
  • O'Donoghue, Bernard (May 1986). "The Old English Elegies. New Essays in Criticism and Research by Martin Green". The Review of English Studies. Oxford University Press. XXXVII (146): 237–238. JSTOR 516977.
  • "Proceedings of the Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association. Also of the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Johns Hopkins University Press. LXVII: i–cxi. 1936. JSTOR 283247.
  • "Proceedings of Modern Language Association of America". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. LIV (Supplement): 1356–1381. 1939. JSTOR 458756.
  • Remein, Daniel (18 February 2016). "Kinetic Beowulf". Harvard Medieval Colloquium. Working paper: 1–26.
  • Rypins, Stanley (June 1945). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". Modern Language Quarterly. Johns Hopkins University Press. VI (2): 225–226. doi:10.1215/00267929-6-2-225.
  • Souers, Philip W. (October 1945). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". Speculum. The Mediaeval Academy of America. XX (4): 502–507. JSTOR 2856735.
  • Wahlgren, Erik (July 1944). "The Legends of Ermanaric by Caroline Brady". California Folklore Quarterly. Western States Folklore Society. III (3): 248–250. JSTOR 1495888.

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Websites

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