Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur

Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (September 18, 1888 – September 9, 1971) was a scholar of early English, German, and Old Norse literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known primarily for his scholarly work on Beowulf and his translation of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda for The American-Scandinavian Foundation, but also as a writer of pulp fiction and for his left-wing politics.

Brodeur was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, to Clarence Arthur Brodeur, a private school teacher who served as Superintendent of Schools at Warren and Chicopee, and to Mary Cornelia (née Latta). He earned Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees at Harvard University in 1909, 1911, and 1916, with a dissertation on the topos of the grateful lion in medieval literature.

While a student, Brodeur taught German and history in a boys' school and was a visiting lecturer at the University of Oregon. However, the bulk of his career was spent at the University of California in Berkeley, where he started in 1916 as an instructor in English and Germanic philology, became a full professor in 1930, and remained until retiring in 1955. He was chairman of the special committee on professionalizing the University of California Press in 1932. After retiring from the University of California, he returned to the University of Oregon. In 1959, he published The Art of Beowulf, which has been called "one of the books that any student of the poem must read."

Brodeur was active in the establishment of the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of California, and served as its first chairman from 1946 until 1951. He had already been translating Old Norse for the American-Scandinavian Society before completing his doctorate. His translation of the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson appeared the same year as he was awarded the degree. In 1944, he was declared a Knight 1st Class of the Royal Order of Vasa for his services to Scandinavian studies.

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