Denis Donoghue (academic)

Denis Donoghue (1 December 1928 – 6 April 2021) was an Irish literary critic. He was the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University.^[1]

Donoghue was born at Tullow, County Carlow, into a Roman Catholic family, the youngest of four surviving children. He was brought up in Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland, where his father, Denis, was sergeant-in-charge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His mother was Johanna (O'Neill) Donoghue.

He was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers at the Abbey Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Newry.^[2] He stood 6'7".^[3]

He studied Latin and English at University College Dublin, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1949, an M.A. in 1952, a Ph.D. in 1957, and a D.Litt. (honoris causa) in 1989. He then studied Lieder singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.^[4] He earned an M.A. at the University of Cambridge in 1964, and returned to Dublin, becoming a professor at UCD.^[5]

In 1980, he was appointed to the Henry James chair of English and American letters at NYU, his final teaching post.^[6]

He married Frances Rutledge, formerly a teacher and flight attendant, on 1 December 1951. The couple had eight children. One, Emma Donoghue (born 1969), is an Irish-Canadian novelist, literary historian, teacher, playwright, and radio/film scriptwriter.^[4]

On 7 December 2018, aged 90, Donoghue married his longtime partner of more than twenty years, Melissa Malouf, in North Carolina, USA. Melissa Malouf (born 1951) was previously married to literary critic Frank Lentriccia. Malouf is a writer and retired Duke University professor of English.^[7] They resided together in Durham, North Carolina, until Denis Donoghue's death at age 92 on 6 April 2021 from natural causes. His first wife, Frances, predeceased him in 2018. He is survived by his second wife Melissa, his children (David, Helen, Hugh, Celia, Mark, Barbara, Stella and Emma), and a large extended family.^[6]

In 1982 the BBC invited Donoghue to present its annual Reith Lectures. Across six lectures, called The Arts Without Mystery, he discussed how society's rationalisation of art was destroying its mystery.^[8][9]

• Knight, Christopher J. (2003). Uncommon Readers: Denis Donoghue, Frank Kermode, George Steiner, and the Tradition of the Common Reader. ISBN 0802087981.