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COPYRIGHT 2002 Adam Mickiewicz University Press
ABSTRACT
Analysis of the difficult establishment of the first woman professor of English English Studies, Caroline Spurgeon, in the Anglo-Saxon and European contexts reveals crucial but much neglected traits of the history of the discipline. Among other things, it shows that when, in the decisive phase of expansion and reorientation after World War I, English English Studies finally seemed to be coming into its own, it was already heavily dependent on US power. The new constellations in world politics become particularly clear in Spurgeon's characterization of the Newbolt Report and her role in the founding of the International Federation of University Women.
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For good reasons, Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon (1869-1942) is regarded as the first woman professor of English English Studies. Moreover, she exercised great influence and, therefore, is a fit subject for a conference in memory of the first woman professor of Polish English Studies. (1) In fact, the two scholars show a number of similarities. Both, for instance, first established themselves in medieval studies. Spurgeon, however, also played a role in the decisive reorientation of English English studies in the context of World War I, i.e. away from philology towards English literature as the leading paradigm. Among other things, she was a member of the Newbolt Committee.
Spurgeon exhibits specific, forward-looking features, which were, to a considerable degree, connected with her special role as a woman. Thus, her example allows us not only to recover a substantial portion of the female part of the history of our discipline, but, simultaneously, to illuminate important characteristics that her male colleagues either did not evince with the same clarity or that, in their case, at least have been badly neglected.
In studying the broader contexts, a non-British, continental perspective may prove helpful. I will first trace Spurgeon's development up to her attainment of the Hildred Carlile Chair at Bedford College and will then concentrate on her activities during the decisive phase of reorientation. (2)
1. Spurgeon's beginnings up to her professorship
Born in 1869, Caroline Spurgeon, in many respects, represents the European social type of the (upper) middle-class daughter. More precisely, she may be called an (upper) middle-class daughter of the Empire, because she was born in India as the only child of a captain. The early years of her youth were spent in Germany and France. As was still common for girls, no great value was attached to her school education. According to Spurgeon's own description, it was limited almost completely to languages and music -- not such a bad basis for specializing later in English. It was at quite an advanced age, twenty-four, that she began her studies at King's and University College London, out of the desire to "attain a thorough and healthy education" (Spurgeon 1999: 88, my translation). Encouraged by a committed Vice-Principal, Lilian Faithfull, she read for the Oxford Honours School in English Language and Literature and passed these examinations in 1899 (Dyhouse 1995: 157 f.).
Although Spurgeon no longer belonged to the first generation of women students, the fulfilment of her wish "to accomplish something definitive" and an academic career were still extremely difficult (Spurgeon 1999: 88, my translation). Being a woman she was not eligible for an Oxford degree, and one backdoor through which a number of others of her sex would soon be able to enter was not open to her. Since she had not taken the full course in Oxford, she was not able to legitimate her success in the examinations by securing a degree ad eundem from Trinity College Dublin. (3) At least, she had the opportunity to join the teaching faculty of Bedford College. She had never intended to become involved in teaching, but this was a chance to get a foot in the door of academia, particularly since during the reorganization of the University of London it had been Bedford among the women's colleges that was immediately integrated and thus recognized as fully academic (Sutherland 1999: 46).
The difficulties confronting Spurgeon with a view to a doctorate would deserve closer scrutiny. What is clear is that she worked ten years on her dissertation. One factor was that the University of London (which had been among the first British universities to admit women to their degrees) still had to fight hard for its full recognition. As late as 1908 Sidney Webb observed that it was still difficult to persuade people that there was a University of London, although it was the biggest in the country and the fourth or fifth largest in the world (Harte 1986: 180). Two years earlier an "intellectual entente cordiale" was established with the Sorbonne, one of the oldest universities outside Italy, with a view to increasing one's respectability. At the Sorbonne, English Studies was already well established, compared to other universities or countries on the Continent (Haas 2000: 359), and it was there that Spurgeon turned, for the formalities at any rate. Of the two professors of English, Alexandre Beljame and E mile Legouis, Legouis in particular maintained close contact with England and had suitable research interests. (4) In 1911, at last, at the age of forty-two, Spurgeon attained a doctorate of literature on the basis of Chaucer devant la critique en Angleterre et en France depuis son temp jusqu'a nos jours.
How important a formal qualification was on account of the manifold prejudices against women in academia can be seen from the example of Spurgeon's friend Edith Morley. Morley did not want to spend so much time, money, and energy on a few letters after her name and built up English at Reading almost single-handed, only to find that, when the college was being elevated...
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