Denis Donoghue (academic)

Denis Donoghue (born 1928) is an Irish literary critic. He is the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University.

Donoghue was born at Tullow, County Carlow, into a Roman Catholic family, and was brought up in Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland, where his father was sergeant-in-charge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers in Newry, County Down.

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.; and then at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He earned a M.A. at the University of Cambridge in 1964, and returned to Dublin, becoming a professor at UCD. Since the late 1970s he has been a professor at New York University.

He married Frances Rutledge; the couple has eight children, including Emma (born 1969), an Irish-Canadian novelist, literary historian, teacher, playwright, radio and film scriptwriter.

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.

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