The James Hogg Society lost a dynamic and dedicated
member last month, Dr. Hans de Groot, Professor Emeritus of the Department of
English at the University of Toronto. Hans played a major role
in the Hogg Society over the past few decades, not only as the editor (since
2011) of the society’s journal, Studies in Hogg and his World, and
of the Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition of Hogg’s Highland
Journeys, but also as the author of a series of perceptive and persuasive articles on the
works of Hogg. A remarkably humble man, Hans also mentored younger scholars in
Scottish Studies with a generosity of spirit not always demonstrated by such
well-established professors.
Hans’s contribution to the society must be
measured, however, by far more than his scholarship on Hogg. His spirited
pursuit of knowledge, passion for performance, dazzling wit, and interesting
adventures brought such life and light to all who worked with him in the field
of Scottish literature. We will always remember, for instance, how much we
enjoyed hearing him sing extempore Hogg’s ‘Donald MacDonald’ at a restaurant in
Konstanz, Germany, during one of the society’s biennial conferences. Nor will
we soon forget the time that he arrived at a society meeting late only to tell
us that he had been waylaid by security (at his own university) who
thought he was a suspicious character and threatened to eject him from campus
until a long-term librarian vouched for him and he was liberated. Undeterred,
Hans led the meeting with characteristic aplomb.
Although the James Hogg Society knew Hans largely
in his capacity as a student of the Ettrick Shepherd, he was also well known in
a number of fields. Hans published widely on Romantic and Victorian literature,
going back to 1968. He published on William Blake, Samuel T. Coleridge, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, John Galt, Isaac d’Israeli, Thomas L.
Peacock, W.J. Fox, W.E. Houghton, Christina Rossetti, Mary Howitt, Thomas
Carlyle, R.H. Horne, Baden Powell, and Matthew Arnold (among others).
Hans was a theatrical man and it was no surprise,
therefore, that he had a love for dramatic and musical performance. In his
later years, he chose to teach courses at the University of Toronto on “Opera
as Drama” and “Shakespeare into Opera,” while in his early years, he
successfully directed productions of William Congreve’s The Way of the
World, August Strindberg’s The Stronger and John
Arden’s Ars Longa. Hans also served as the music director of a
production of Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene’s A Mirror for London and
acted in the medieval play Assumption of the Virgin, John Gay’s The
Beggar’s Opera, and even transformed himself into Coleridge for a dramatic reading at the bicentenary of the publication of the Lyrical Ballads in
1998. His love of music led him to give presentations and to publish
articles on the music of Richard Wagner in particular and to write opera
reviews for Wagner News.
Given Hans’s enthusiasm for learning and enormous
creativity, he also became an excellent organizer of memorable academic (and
other) events over the years. He successfully organized symposiums and
conferences on such subjects / authors as the 1890s, madness, Blake and the
Ancients, James Hogg, William Morris, Virginia Woolf, and Matthew Arnold.
Regardless of what we spoke with Hans about over
the years, he would always return to the topic of that which he valued most:
his family. He would often speak of how proud he was of his children (Nicholas,
Jonathan, Benjamin, Adrian, and Saskia) and of how happy he was with his wife
Rebecca Carpenter. It was comforting to learn that he passed from this life in
the presence of those he loved. He will be greatly missed.
--Holly Faith Nelson
