Alwin Thaler

Dr. Alwin Thaler (1891–1977) joined the faculty of the university’s English Department in 1923 and retired in 1961. He was an internationally recognized authority on Shakespeare. Among his monographs are Shakespeare’s Silences (1928), which placed him in the front rank of Shakespearean scholars; Shakespeare and Democracy (1941); Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney (1947); and Shakespeare and Our World (1966). He published other books and many articles in scholarly journals, and he initiated Tennessee Studies in Literature, which he edited from 1956 to 1962. He served as president of the Tennessee Philological Association and the Shakespeare section of the Modern Language Association. His reputation brought him invitations to serve as a visiting professor at Stanford, Harvard, Emory, and the Universities of Texas, Minnesota, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and California at Berkeley. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1929–30, studying in England. In 1964 he was named a member of the National Committee of the Shakespeare Anniversary Committee, of which Jacqueline Kennedy served as honorary chair. His intellectual contributions to the life of the university have been recognized by placement of a plaque in his honor on a faculty study. He was also a gardening enthusiast and delighted in growing many varieties of roses.