Sylvan Barnet, literary critic and Shakespearean scholar, Died at 89

  Writers

Sylvan Saul Barnet was born on December 11, 1926, and died January 11, 2016.

He was an American literary critic and Shakespearean scholar.

He was a Fletcher Professor of English Emeritus at Tufts University.

Sylvan is the author of numerous books and articles on Shakespeare.

He was the general editor of the Signet Classics Shakespeare, the author of A Short Guide to Shakespeare, and has written many textbooks.

Mr. Sylvan was the co-author with William Burto of occasional essays on aspects of Japanese art.

He has also written books about the art of writing.

Sylvan Barnet was born in Brooklyn and attended Erasmus Hall High School.

He served in the US Army in 1945-46.

Sylvan his bachelor’s degree in 1948 at New York University and then his MA in 1950 and Ph.D in 1954 at Harvard.

Sylvan Barnet is currently professor emeritus at Tufts University, where he taught English literature from 1954 to 1984 and served for several terms as chair of the English department.

Before his death, he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sylvan Barnet passed away at 89 yrs old due cancer at his home there on January 11, 2016.