Florby, Gunilla 1943-

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Florby, Gunilla 1943-

PERSONAL:

Born July 28, 1943, in Lund, Sweden. Education: Lund University, Ph.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of Göteborg, P.O. Box 200, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academician. Lund University, Lund, Sweden, professor of English, until 2002; University of Göteborg, Göteborg, Sweden, professor of English literature, 2002—.

MEMBER:

International Association of University Professors of English, Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, Societé Royale des Lettres de Lund.

WRITINGS:

The Painful Passage to Virtue: A Study of George Chapman's "The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois" and "The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois," CWK Gleerup (Lund, Sweden), 1982.

The Margin Speaks: A Study of Margaret Laurence and Robert Kroetsch from a Post-Colonial Point of View, Lund University (Lund, Sweden), 1997.

Echoing Texts: George Chapman's "Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron," Lund University (Lund, Sweden), 2004.

(Editor, with Karin Aijmer) Lines and Traces: Papers Presented to Lennart Björk on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, Göteborg University (Göteborg, Sweden), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gunilla Florby is a Swedish academician. Born on July 28, 1943, in Lund, Sweden, Florby completed a Ph.D. in 1982 from Lund University. She later accepted a faculty position in the English department of Lund University. In 2002 she moved to the University of Göteborg, in Göteborg, Sweden, to become a professor of English literature. Professionally, Florby is a member of the International Association of University Professors of English, Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, and Societé Royale des Lettres de Lund.

Florby published her first book in 1982 with CWK Gleerup, a Swedish publishing company. The Painful Passage to Virtue: A Study of George Chapman's "The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois" and "The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois," is also the first published book Florby wrote on the works of the English poet and dramatist George Chapman. Through Lund University, Florby published The Margin Speaks: A Study of Margaret Laurence and Robert Kroetsch from a Post-Colonial Point of View in 1997, almost fifteen years after her book publishing debut. After Florby moved to the University of Göteborg, she edited Lines and Traces: Papers Presented to Lennart Björk on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday in 2006.

The book with some of the most critical attention Florby published was Echoing Texts: George Chapman's "Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron." Published in 2004 through Lund University, Echoing Texts continues her study of the works of George Chapman. The drama Florby chooses to analyze is the 1608 Jacobean tragedy, Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. The two-part play, taken from French history, tells of a duke who was executed for treason in the early seventeenth century. Florby examines the discourses behind the text and makes an intertextual study between it and her interpretation of the text itself. In the second chapter, Florby analyzes how Chapman read and understood the primary sources he was using. The following chapters observe how transpositions from Homer's Iliad, Seneca's Oedipus, and Plutarch's Moralia affect classical subtexts. The fifth chapter looks into the cultural and political aspects of the play, in the context of its own time period, particularly of the concept of an absolute state and patriarchal king. John Huntington, writing in the Renaissance Quarterly, noted that "her study can be understood as an appreciation of the density of the discourse in which Chapman was working and as an explanation of Chapman's difficult style itself." Huntington pondered why Chapman was not the topic of more contemporary scholarship, adding that what does exist on the dramatist has not endeared scholars to pursue it with new interest. Huntington noted, however, that "Florby chooses to reinvigorate her subject by going back to the very issue which generated much of the modern animus against Chapman: his indebtedness to classical and contemporary Latin texts for specific passages."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, Volume XLV, 1983, review of The Painful Passage to Virtue: A Study of George Chapman's "The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois" and "The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois."

Canadian Literature, June 22, 1999, David Creelman, review of The Margin Speaks: A Study of Margaret Laurence and Robert Kroetsch from a Post-Colonial Point of View, p. 178.

Durham University Journal, December, 1984, review of The Painful Passage to Virtue.

Journal of Canadian Studies, winter, 1998, Susan J. Warwick, review of The Margin Speaks.

Notes and Queries, June, 1984, review of The Painful Passage to Virtue.

Renaissance Quarterly, spring, 2006, John Huntington, review of Echoing Texts: George Chapman's "Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron."

University of Toronto Quarterly, winter, 1998, Diana Brydon, review of The Margin Speaks.

Western American Literature, winter, 1999, Frances W. Kaye, review of The Margin Speaks.