Watson, J(ohn) R(ichard) 1934–

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WATSON, J(ohn) R(ichard) 1934–

PERSONAL: Born June 15, 1934, in Ipswich, England; son of Reginald Joseph and Alice Mabel (Tennant) Watson; married Pauline Elizabeth Roberts (a psychiatrist), July 21, 1962; children: David James, Elizabeth Emma, Rachel Clare. Education: Magdalen College, Oxford, M.A., 1958; University of Glasgow, Ph.D., 1962. Hobbies and other interests: Sailing, windsurfing, architecture, playing the cello, hill-walking.

ADDRESSES: Home—3 Victoria Ter., Durham, England. Office—Department of English, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, assistant lecturer in English, 1962–66; University of Leicester, Leicester, England, 1966–78, began as lecturer, became senior lecturer in English; University of Durham, Durham, England, professor of English, 1978–89, public orator, 1989–99, professor emeritus, 1999–. Member of the Archbishops' Commission on Church Music, 1988–92. Military service: British Army, Royal Artillery, 1953–55; became second lieutenant.

MEMBER: Landscape Research Group (member of committee), Modern Humanities Research Association (chairman of executive council, 1990–99), Charles Wesley Society (vice president, 1994–98), Association of University Professors of English (president, 1995–98).

WRITINGS:

Picturesque Landscape and English Romantic Poetry, Hutchinson (London, England), 1970.

(Editor) Browning: Men and Women and Other Poems, Macmillan (London, England), 1974.

(Editor, with N. P. Messenger) Victorian Poetry, Rowman and Littlefield (Totowa, NJ), 1974.

(Editor, with J. C. Hilson and M. M. B. Jones) Augustan Worlds: New Essays in Eighteenth-Century Literature, Barnes and Noble (New York, NY), 1978.

(With D. C. Perkins and Derek Cyril) Model Essays, Celtic Revision Aids (Sunbury on Thames, England), 1979.

(With D. C. Perkins and Derek Cyril) Essay Plans, Celtic Revision Aids (Sunbury on Thames, England), 1979.

(Editor) Everyman's Book of Victorian Verse, Dent (London, England), 1982.

Wordsworth's Vital Soul: The Sacred and Profane in Wordsworth's Poetry, Humanities Press (Atlantic Highlands, NJ), 1982.

(Editor) An Infinite Complexity: Essays on Romanticism, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1983.

Wordsworth, Profile Books (Windsor, Berkshire, England), 1984.

English Poetry of the Romantic Period: 1789–1830, Longman (New York, NY), 1985, revised edition, 1992.

(Editor) Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Penguin (Harmondsworth, England), 1987.

(With K. Trickett) Companion to Hymns and Psalms, Methodist Publishing House, 1988.

(Editor) Pre-Romanticism in English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century, the Poetic Art and Significance of Thomson, Gray, Collins, Goldsmith, Cowper, and Crabbe, Macmillan (Basingstoke, England), 1989.

(Editor, with Jean Raimond) A Handbook to English Romanticism, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor) An Annotated Anthology of Hymns, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Romanticism and War: A Study of British Romantic Period Writers and the Napoleonic Wars, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to literary journals, including Review of English Studies.

SIDELIGHTS: J. R. Watson is the author of a number of volumes, including several that focus on hymns as their subject. In The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study, he treats hymns as a literary form separate from their use during worship. He examines their structure, traces their origins and influences, and studies individual hymns. Journal of Religion contributor Edith L. Blumhofer noted that Watson devotes one chapter to Victorian female hymn writers and that he "is a literary critic, not a historian. He is less interested in how the hymns were used or in the religious movements of which they were part than he is in their crafting, meter, and vocabulary or their relationship to English poetry. Chronological arrangement gives the text historical flow and helps the reader follow the broad contours of English church history…. The book's strengths are legion. The author is thoroughly conversant with English poetry and literature and with the Authorized King James Version, and his studies of individual hymns are enriched by this corpus."

Gordon S. Wakefield wrote in the Journal of Theological Studies that the book "is something of a masterpiece and a joy to read. The last paragraph recognizes that hymn singing may well be in a decline from which, in the twenty-first century, with fewer regular churchgoers and the substitution of choruses more in tune with popular culture, it will not recover. The book could revive interest, both among scholars and those in search of spiritual nourishment and inspiration, and thus, through the influence of the leadership, restore delight in hymns among the people of God."

Watson follows with An Annotated Anthology of Hymns, in which he offers 251 hymns that "have a place in the history of the church and the development of religious thought." The hymns are reproduced as literary text, including some that have been translated from Latin, Greek, and German, enabling the reader to clearly see the literary and poetic features. They are presented chronologically, by historical period, from the beginnings of the church until present time, with separate chapters for Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and American hymns. Canon Draper reviewed the book for Church Times online, saying that Watson "understands the importance of the music in considering hymns, and therefore gives due place in the commentaries to the tunes to which the words have been set in the different traditions in which they are sung."

Times Literary Supplement reviewer Glyn Paflin wrote that Watson "assumes little prior knowledge: he guides the reader through each hymn, paying attention to form, and explaining allusions to scripture or to Paradise Lost, for example." Journal of Religion reviewer E. Byron Anderson wrote that "as an anthology, Watson is not offering a worship book for the church, although a careful reading of the hymn texts does invite devotional attention as well as literary consideration."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, October, 1998, Peter Newman Brooks, review of The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study, p. 736.

Journal of Religion, October, 1999, Edith L. Blumhofer, review of The English Hymn, p. 665; January, 2004, E. Byron Anderson, review of An Annotated Anthology of Hymns, p. 165.

Journal of Theological Studies, October, 1998, Gordon S. Wakefield, review of The English Hymn, p. 894.

London Review of Books, December 11, 1997, review of The English Hymn, p. 31.

Modern Language Review, July, 1999, review of The English Hymn, p. 804.

Notes and Queries, December, 1993, Avril Horner, review of English Poetry of the Romantic Period: 1789–1830, p. 560.

Review of English Studies, February, 1999, review of The English Hymn, p. 104.

Times Literary Supplement, April 6, 1984; April 24, 1998, review of The English Hymn, p. 26; October 4, 2002, Glyn Paflin, review of An Annotated Anthology of Hymns, p. 22.