Medievalist Theodore Silverstein, 1904-2001

Theodore Silverstein, an eminent scholar of medieval literature, science and poetry who had a second, secret career decoding German radio signals in World War II, died Saturday, Sept. 1, in Chicago, of natural causes. He was 96.

Silverstein was distinguished by both the range of his scholarly achievement –which includes editions of both Old English poetry and Late Latin visionary apocalypses– and his skill at bringing the material to life. He was part of a generation of scholars who "dispensed with the image of the Middle Ages as the ‘dark age’ in the history of Western civilization, and brought Medieval culture closer to modern concerns," said Paolo Cherchi, Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

"He had the ability to take poetry that was centuries removed and make it read like it was written yesterday," said John Jacobs, Associate Professor in English at Loyola University. "All his formidable learning was at the service of whatever the poet had done. He was the reason I became a medievalist."

In addition to the freshness and vitality he brought to teaching, Silverstein led a romantic and eventful life. Born in Liverpool, England, he earned a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, conducted research in England and France, and taught at Harvard and the University of Kansas City. He then at the age of 38 volunteered for military service and was enrolled in the Air Force, where he worked on material from the top-secret and highly technical ENIGMA project.

Because he was sworn to silence, his colleagues and even his wife were unaware of the details of his career until the recent declassification of the material. His work took him from North Africa, through Sicily and Italy, to the U.K. for the Normandy landings, through the Battle of the Bulge. On the flyleaf of his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Silverstein mentions "an adventure not unlike that of a certain knight, during which Professor Silverstein commanded an Air Force unit which requisitioned and operated the Eiffel Tower" in order to intercept coded German messages. That career included stunning mishaps as well as brilliant successes. His former commanding officer, Harry Turkel, writes that one night, as Silverstein attempted to show him a captured Belgian pistol, the gun accidentally fired: "The bullet hit my wrist, passed through into my groin [and through my testicle]…I stood up and said to Silverstein, ‘Why you damned fool,’ and turned and walked away…I staggered a few steps and…collapsed at the foot of the stairs." Yet that same officer later described Silverstein as "the finest intelligence officer in the Western Theater," a testament to the mettle of both parties.

When he returned from Europe, at the age of 41, he married his sweetheart, a young graduate student in English at Columbia University named Mary Poindexter, then 20. Highlights of their romance included a date in New York City arranged by the famous playwright Tennessee Williams and chaperoned by the actress Julie Harris and a bare-bones marriage ceremony at the Army compound on Governor’s Island. After receiving a Guggenheim fellowship in 1946, Silverstein was hired by the University of Chicago English Department, where he taught medieval literature until his retirement in 1973.

In addition to his work on poetry, Silverstein produced important studies of medieval philosophy and science during his years at Chicago. He compiled a catalog of the medieval scientific writings in the Vatican library, edited a Hermetic text, and produced an essay on "The Fabulous Cosmogony of Bernardus Silvestris," which "taught generations of scholars how to read allegorical medieval poems," according to Cherchi. During his years at Chicago, Silverstein also served as chairman on the Committee on Ideas and Methods, which his colleague on the committee, Wayne Booth, described as "really a committee on the philosophy of everything: we had majors in math and science as well as rhetoric and English. During his term as chair he would organize the regular seminars where we’d present ideas to each other and shoot each other down. He was one of best shooter-downers but always witty and very much alive and fun to have around with a mind like that, that’s been interested in everything…Unlike many scholars he was not confined to one corner." After he retired, he regularly returned to Oxford with his wife, where they would routinely spend five months of the year.

Broad as it was, Silverstein’s philological work centered around a few foci: the Apocalypse of Paul, an apocryphal work purporting to describe the visions of hell seen by the Apostle Paul, was the subject of a series of articles in the early 1930s, his first book in 1935, and a definitive edition 60 years later in 1997 in collaboration with the Dutch scholar Anthony Hilhorst. Early studies of Dante eventually resulted in a collection, translated into Italian by his colleague Paolo Cherchi, on the great Italian poet. He followed a classic 1964 article on the poetic techniques of the anonymous 13th-century author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 20 years later with a critical edition of this difficult text.

Silverstein’s students and colleagues point to his work on Gawain as an example of his remarkable ability to open a text to the reader. His former student, Jacobs (who has just edited a collection of Silverstein’s essays entitled Literate Laughter), said, "I read Hemingway differently because of his book on Gawain. In Farewell to Arms the seasonal pattern works as a commentary on the plot… Though I knew that was there, I never saw how it foreshadowed and heightened the action of the novel til I read Ted on Gawain, where he pointed out the same thing." David Smigelskis, Associate Professor in the Humanities at Chicago, said Silverstein "wanted to make the point that a number of Gestes ("stories") were nothing but jests." Perhaps this is best summed up by the fact that, according to his wife Mary, the original motivation for Silverstein’s translation of the Gawain adventure was simply to show her how funny it was.

Silverstein is survived by his wife, Mary Poindexter Silverstein, his sister Mildred Nollman and his nieces Ellen and Doris Nollman. Memorial services are scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 11, at 4pm in Bond Chapel, on the University of Chicago campus. Donations in his name may be made to the University of Chicago Regenstein Library or to the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Photos:

Mary and Theodore Silverstein 300 dpi jpeg, 1200x1689