Nevill Coghill

See Nevill Josiah Aylmer Coghill for the recipient of the Victoria Cross

Nevill Coghill (1899-1980) was a British literary scholar, known especially for his modern English version of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Coghill was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford; a small bust of him may be found today in the college chapel. In 1948 he was made professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, London. He was Merton Professor of English Literature of the University of Oxford from 1957 to 1966.

His Chaucer and Langland translations were first made for BBC radio broadcasts. He was well known in his time as a theatrical producer and director in Oxford; he is particularly noted as the director of the landmark OUDS 1949 production of The Tempest. He was an associate of The Inklings literary group.

Works

• New Oxford Poetry 1937 (1937) edited with Alistair Sandford
• The Masque of Hope (1948)
• The Poet Chaucer (1949)
• Visions From Piers Plowman (1949)
• Troilus and Cressida in Modern English Verse (1957), Chaucer, translator
• Geoffrey Chaucer (1959)
• The Nun's Priest's Tale (1961) edited with Christopher Tolkien
• Canterbury Tales (1962) translator
• Langland: Piers Plowman (1964)
• Shakespeare's Professional Skills (1964)
• The Pardoner's Tale (1965) edited with Christopher Tolkien
• Chaucer's Idea of What is Noble (1971)
• A Choice of Chaucer's Verse (1972) editor
• The Pardon of Piers Plowman (1973)
• The Collected Papers of Nevill Coghill Shakespearian & Medievalist (1988)

Reference

• To Nevill Coghill from Friends (1966) Festschrift edited by John Lawlor and W. H. Auden

See also

• list of Gresham Professors of Rhetoric