David Greene, a leading American-based scholar of Irish literature and one of the authorised biographers of JM Synge, has died aged 94.
He taught at New York University, often in large classrooms packed with students soaking up his passion for Irish culture. He traced his lineage on his father's side to English settlers of Massachusetts in the early 1700s, but his mother was from Ireland.
"He was less proud of his Mayflower-like heritage than of his Irish-immigrant roots," his daughter Candy Moss said. "He had a robust respect for Irish culture and spent years studying early Christian stone sculpture in Ireland."
Peter Quinn, a novelist and chronicler of Irish America, said: "For Irish-Americans, his work was eye-opening. At a time when nobody in America was teaching Irish literature, he's the one who opened that field of study."
In 1959, with Edward M Stephens, Greene published J.M. Synge: 1871-1909 (Macmillan), about the playwright who was at the forefront of what many scholars call the Irish literary renaissance. The book details how Synge assimilated Ireland's heritage into poetic drama.
Greene was also editor of An Anthology of Irish Literature (New York University Press, 1971); 1,000 Years of Irish Prose (Devin-Adair, 1952); and co-editor with Dan H. Laurence of The Matter With Ireland (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962), a compilation of George Bernard Shaw's writings.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he brought his expertise to television as a lecturer on the WCBS-TV series Sunrise Semester.
David Herbert Greene was born in Boston on November 4th, 1913, one of four children of Herbert and Annie Roche Greene. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1936, a master's degree a year later and a PhD in 1939, all at Harvard and all in literature.
After serving as a navy intelligence officer in Britain in the second World War, he was appointed to the English faculty at NYU. He retired in 1979, but continued to lecture as an emeritus professor until 1985.
In the mid-1930s, while a student at Harvard, Greene was assigned to escort the playwright Seán O'Casey, who had been invited to speak on campus.
They struck up a friendship that lasted for decades, resulting in a voluminous exchange of correspondence.
Three years ago he donated his trove of O'Casey letters to NYU.
Mr Greene is survived by his wife of 69 years, Catherine; a son, David; daughters Candy, Judith and Gail; four grandchildren and a great-grandson. Another daughter, Helen Carol, died in 1981.
...
David Greene: born November 4th, 1913; died July 9th, 2008