Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon

Mysticism in English Literature (Dodo Press) Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon

Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon (1869-1942) was an English literary critic. She was educated at Cheltenham, Dresden and at King's College London and University College London. From May 1900 she lectured on English Literature in London. She became a member of the staff of Bedford College, London, in 1901. She was an expert on Geoffrey Chaucer and in 1911 wrote a thesis in Paris on Chaucer Devant la Critique, and in 1929 in London on 500 Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion. In 1936 she settled in Tucson, Arizona, where she died, apparently on her 73rd birthday from undisclosed causes. Today Spurgeon is mainly known for one book, the pioneer study on the use of images in William Shakespeare's work, called Shakespeare's Imagery, and What it Tells Us from 1935. It has been reprinted several times. In it she analyses the different types of images and motifs that he uses in his plays. Her other works include: Mysticism in English Literature (1913) and Keats's Shakespeare: A Descriptive Study Based on New Material (1928).