Gray, Wallace 1927-2001

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GRAY, Wallace 1927-2001

PERSONAL:

Born July 13, 1927, in Alexandria, LA; died of a heart attack December 21, 2001, in New York, NY. Education: Louisiana College, B.A., 1946; Louisiana State University, M.A., 1951; Columbia College, Ph.D., 1958.

CAREER:

Professor and playwright. Columbia College, New York, NY, 1953-2001, began as instructor, professor of English, 1974-2001, also served as assistant dean of students. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1944-46.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Great Teacher Award, Columbia College Alumni Association; Mark Van Doren Award, students of Columbia College, for teaching excellence; Award for Distinguished Service to the Core Curriculum, Columbia College, 1997.

WRITINGS:

The Cowboy and the Tiger (children's musical), produced in New York, NY, 1963.

Helen (play), produced off-Broadway, 1964.

Homer to Joyce (essays), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1985.

Also author of ten other plays.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his New York Times obituary, Wallace Gray was hailed as "a favorite teacher for generations of Columbia College students." Gray spent the bulk of his teaching career at Columbia, where he began teaching in 1953. He continued teaching until the time of his death on December 21, 2001, when he died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-four.

Gray taught one of Columbia's most popular literature courses, "Eliot, Joyce, Pound" or "E.J.P" as it was known among students, for twenty years. With each new semester, he would put his students at ease with this opening line: "I know more about 'Ulysses' than anyone else in the world, and I'm going to teach it all to you." His popularity with both students and staff won him the Mark Van Doren Award as well as Columbia's Great Teacher Award and Award for Distinguished Service to the Core Curriculum. At the time of his death, Gray was the teacher with the longest service in literature humanities at Columbia.

Aside from teaching, Gray was a playwright. His The Cowboy and the Tiger was a long-running musical for children that was also broadcast on television. Gray also wrote and published a book titled Homer to Joyce, an extension of his classroom work. In it, the author examines eighteen of the most influential books of the Western World, including Homer's Iliad, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Virgil's Aeneid, among others. Gray uses these diverse titles as a basis for discussion of the human condition in Western culture. Booklist contributor Eric Wexler recommended the book for the connections Gray makes between the various pieces of literature. "He sees these works as speaking not only to their times but to each other in a continuous dialogue through the centuries."

Joseph Voelker, whose review was published in Studies in Short Fiction, said, "The book has quirks. Gray seems to indulge his interest in Athenian politics, …using up classroom minutes that could go towards more intrinsic matters." For instance, the critic observed, Gray "insists Antigone is just plain wrong. He scolds the principals in Lear for their impatience." The critic concluded that "overall, though, Gray's scholarship shows the generalist in the very best light."