E. M. W. Tillyard (Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard) Biography

British scholar and critic, born at Cambridge, where he was educated at Jesus College and lived throughout his life. He worked as an archaeologist in Athens before returning to Cambridge to lecture. His involvement in the emergence of the Cambridge School of English during the 1920s is recalled in his late work The Muses Unchained (1958). The works of Milton and Shakespeare were his chief interests: Milton (1930), which established his reputation as a scholar, was followed by The Miltonic Setting (1938); his trilogy Shakespeare's Last Plays (1938), Shakespeare's History Plays (1944), and Shakespeare's Problem Plays (1950) was highly regarded. He is best known for The Elizabethan World-Picture (1943), which widely influenced literary studies through its emphasis on the centrality of ‘the chain of being’ to Elizabethan thought. His other works include The English Epic and Its Tradition (1954) and The Personal Heresy (1939), a collaboration with C. S. Lewis.