Дэвид Бевингтон: Ренессанс әдебиетінің шебері

American literary scholar (1931–2019)
David Martin Bevington (May 13, 1931 – August 2, 2019) was an American literary scholar. He was the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and in English Language & Literature, Comparative Literature, and the college at the University of Chicago, where he taught since 1967, as well as chair of Theatre and Performance Studies. "One of the most learned and devoted of Shakespeareans," so called by Harold Bloom, he specialized in British drama of the Renaissance, and edited and introduced the complete works of William Shakespeare in both the 29 volume, Bantam Classics paperback editions and the single volume Longman edition. After accomplishing this feat, Bevington was often cited as the only living scholar to have personally edited Shakespeare's complete corpus. He also edited the Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama and an important anthology of Medieval English Drama, the latter of which was just re released by Hackett for the first time in nearly four decades. Bevington's editorial scholarship is so extensive that Richard Strier, an early modern colleague at the University of Chicago, was moved to comment: "Every time I turn around, he has edited a new Renaissance text. Bevington has endless energy for editorial projects." In addition to his work as an editor, he published studies of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and the Stuart Court Masque, among others, though it is for his work as an editor that he is primarily known. Despite formally retiring, Bevington continued to teach and publish. Most recently he authored Shakespeare and Biography, a study of the history of Shakespearean biography and of such biographers, as well as Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages. In August, 2012, after a decade of research, he released the first complete edition of Ben Jonson published in over a half century with Ian Donaldson and Martin Butler from the Cambridge Press. In addition to his preeminence among scholars of William Shakespeare, he was a much beloved teacher, winning a Quantrell Award in 1979.

David Bevington was born to Merle M. (1900–1964) and Helen Bevington (née Smith; 1906–2001), and grew up in Manhattan, and from age eleven, North Carolina, when his parents, themselves both academics, finished graduate school at Columbia University and went on to join the faculty at Duke. After attending Phillips Exeter Academy from 1945 to 1948, before it was co educational, he graduated from Harvard University cum laude in 1952, before entering the navy that year, and becoming a lieutenant junior grade before his leaving in 1955. He saw much of the Mediterranean, though neither Israel nor Turkey. Upon his return to Harvard, he pursued an M. A. and Ph. D., receiving them respectively in 1957 and 1959. Surprisingly, he was well into the graduate process before settling on the Renaissance; he had intended to study the Victorian until a Shakespeare seminar convinced him otherwise.

David and Margaret Bronson Bevington née Brown ("Peggy") were married on June 4, 1953. Peggy taught primary schoolchildren at the Laboratory School adjacent to the main quadrangles for many years. They lived several blocks from the University of Chicago's main campus, and threw a light soirée for his students once per quarter. They had four children: Stephen Raymond, Philip Landon, Katharine Helen, and Sarah Amelia and five grandchildren, two of whom (Leo and Peter) attended the University of Chicago. Leo was an active member of the Dean's Men, a student performance group for which Bevington served as faculty advisor. In addition to attending all of the Dean's Men productions, Bevington hosted an event each quarter wherein he discussed the text with the cast and staff of the show at his home. Bevington self identified as both a Democrat and "lapsed Episcopalian." Bevington's adamant support for exercise was demonstrated in his use of the bicycle as a means of transportation, and when that was made impossible by snow or rain, in his insistence on walking (rather than driving) the requisite distance to campus. He notably also took public transportation whenever he traveled from his Hyde Park home to downtown Chicago. Bevington was left handed and a concert violist, and he often performed in various ensembles, including a quartet involving faculty and students from the university. He enjoyed chamber music and opera, and owned a restored pre World War I Steinway grand piano. The Bevingtons celebrated their sixtieth ("Diamond Jubilee") wedding anniversary on June 4, 2013, at a reception organized by the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and the program for Theatre and Performance Studies, of which Bevington was formerly the faculty chair. He died on August 2, 2019, at the age of 88. Peggy died on September 5, 2020.

Although the following does not boast of being complete, it includes the vast majority of Bevington's publications sorted into three lists: books he has authored, plays/anthologies thereof he has edited, and anthologies of scholarly essays he edited (with or without a co editor).

Bevington's extensive bibliography as an editor comprised mainly the Shakespeare canon and a complete Jonson. The bulk of his work was with David Scott Kastan in the 29 volume Bantam series, which was originally published in 1988 and was reissued in 2005, and his own complete Shakespeare, which is continually reissued. However, Bevington worked on a handful of plays for other publishers, though nearly all are within the scope of the English Renaissance. Bevington notably maintained a single, conflated text in all of his editions of King Lear, a revisionist choice criticized by some scholars (including the abovementioned Richard Strier, who insists his own students read the Quarto and Folio texts separately).

David Bevington Remembered, compiled by Eric Rasmussen and Milla Cozart Riggio (BookArts of Washington, DC, 2020). Shakespeare and Montaigne, edited by Lars Engle, Patrick Gray, and William M. Hamlin (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).