Karl Beckson
Karl E. Beckson was an American educator, scholar, and author of numerous articles and sixteen books on British literature, culture, and authors including Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons, and Henry Harland. Of particular interest to him was the late 19th century Symbolist Movement and its influence on late 19th century and early 20th century authors including James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Bernard Shaw. He co-authored, with Arthur Ganz, Literary Terms: A Dictionary, first published in 1960, and still available in its extensively revised 1990 third edition.
Academic career
He earned a B.A., English, from University of Arizona in 1949, an M.A. from Columbia University in 1952, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1959. At Columbia, he studied with Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren, and William York Tindall. The subject of his Ph.D. dissertation was the Rhymers' Club. He first taught at Columbia, then at Bronx Community College, and at Fairleigh-Dickinson University. He taught at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, from 1961 until his retirement in 2004 having held the title of professor since 1976. He led a seminar for psychiatry residents with Dr. Simon Grolnick at Cornell University Medical College with the title of Lecturer of English in Psychiatry.Awards
City University of New York Summer Research Award, 1967.Research Foundation Award, 1972–1973.
Andrew Mellon Fellowship, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1978.
National Endowment of the Arts Senior Fellow, 1989–90.