Talk:George Lyman Kittredge

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Several things need to be added. 1) Kittredge's place in American folklore studies. His sponsorship of John A. Lomax and other folklorists. 2) Controversy over so-called "communal theory of composition" and criticisms by Louise Pound and others. 3) Different versions of his remarks about Lead Belly. 4) background about philologists versus "new humanists" -- the latter, who disparaged Kittredge as pedantic and out of date, were themselves often windy and made wildly inaccurate assertions (since they cared little for precision). Some of them were also racists, which Kittredge and Child, who were liberals of cosmopolitan views, were definitely not -- so their work now seems even more dated (I believe this is recounted in Gerald Graff's book on about English literature scholarship). 4) There are numerous colorful anecdotes told about Kittredge, some of which would be worth a mention.Mballen (talk) 04:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

"Kittredge's administrative power, vast erudition, prestige, and the histrionic attitude he assumed with undergraduates provoked resentment." -- Although I wrote this myself, I now see that it is a vast oversimplification. The quarrels over the philological method were more complex than this and have been gone over in Gerald Graff's book. Graff and Wellek reflect their time in that they are clearly biased in favor of "criticism" over and against philology. Nevertheless, critics of philology did have a point. Not everybody needed to study Gothic (or even Greek) in order to teach or study English. And the controversy over how to reconcile research with the requirements of general education is still with us -- indeed the purpose of a liberal arts education is still in doubt. I haven't figured out how to deal with this in a concise manner but will make some additions later -- not to mention dealing with the "communal" theory of composition of folk ballads that Kittredge was accused of promoting.173.77.100.252 (talk) 01:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Jesus-like qualities
"To save money he walked to Harvard every day from his home in Boston across the Charles River to Cambridge." Even for a giant like George Lyman Kittredge, an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim like that's gonna need support from exceptional sources. EEng (talk) 15:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * A) Why is that an exceptional claim? The distance is c. 3 miles or 60 NYC blocks. I know unexceptional (certainly not Jesus-like) people who walk, or even run, from Brooklyn to their jobs in Manhattan. Alan Turing is said to have run on more than one occasion 40 miles to meetings while working on the Enigma project. B) Why does Kittredge's  published biography not qualify as a reliable source? Surely, this is going beyond Wikipedia's rules. I get that there are people who don't like Kittredge or perhaps philology, but he was an extremely important figure in literary studies and pedagogical theory, and to state this fact is not puffery; the fact that someone thinks it is shows the degree of ignorance into which people have fallen. Nor is it beside the point to show that Kittredge was not from the privileged New England elite classes, but rather from a modest background, like his mentor, Child. Mballen (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Planning to add to this article Kittredge's views on Witchcraft, Women, and running Harvard Press
As a fan of Beowulf (especially Seamus Heaney translation) and an appreciator of American folklore (especially Harry Smith anthology) I may owe a debt to GL Kittredge. I come to him from elsewhere, from his influential views of witchcraft, and am planning to add a section here using some existing references (like adoring biographer CK Hyder-- re view on women and other personality traits) as well as a book about Harvard Press by Max Hall (1986) and various references to the Kittredge view of witchcraft from those opposed like GL Burr (1911, 1938) as well as those supportive like David D. Hall (1985). Naturally, like any responsible editor, I will attempt to restrain bias, but since this is the "Talk" page, where we pull back the curtain, and since we are grown-ups and we know bias is more likely to be hidden than non-existent, I will go ahead and say that it seems to me Kittredge was playing the contrarian when he launched himself into the witchcraft topic with his 1907 essay (albeit long-winded, and super-footnoted) and his view could be seen as adding a bit of salt, or global context, to a view that was sometimes too insular re New England. You could say he was being punk rock. If he had died in 1908, that would basically be my view. It is hard to understand his gist in the 1907 essay without knowing the 50 year historiography that preceded (for a sample of 19th c. view see Robert Calef article). Kittredge seems to have been viewed as an unwelcome dilettante by GL Burr, a historian who had specialized in witchcraft for decades. Burr wrote a passionate rebuke in 1911 calling out Kittredge by name and Burr followed with his popular 1914 book Narratives. These rebukes would seem to have provoked the proud Kittredge (see Hyder bio) to double-down and set the course for a full scale revision of colonial history from the Harvard English department. A number of the claims from this revision now seem unsupported by the evidence including some things that emerged concurrently or later (see September 2, 1692 letter by Cotton Mather). But it is also interesting to place the Kittredge vs Burr skirmish into a wider ongoing lineage of similar disputes like WF Poole vs CW Upham which was something of an extension of the original C Mather vs R Calef, and we can also find the Mather-Calef argument continuing in England with R Boulton vs F Hutchinson. Returning to the realm of folklore we can find an interesting debate in 19th c. Germany: J Grimm vs WG Soldan.

From looking at this wiki article, it seems Kittredge still has some fans, and I hope not to offend with my additions. If anything seems remiss please edit or reach out to me directly and I'll do my best to make it right. Lewismr (talk) 16:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)