He was an emeritus professor of English at the University of Kentucky.
[3] Clubbe received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
He taught at Duke University and the University of Kentucky from 1976 to 1999 and is an expert on English Romanticism, especially the works of Lord Byron.
[3] He was a longtime president of the International Association of Byron Societies and the Byron Society of America, where he was chair from 1974 through 1999.
[2][6] Clubbe received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975 as well as a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship into Thomas Carlyle.