Morton W. Bloomfield

[1] He is best known for his scholarly work, teaching and mentoring on Medieval literature, language, as well as contributions to intellectual history, literary criticism and theory.

Notably, he also taught German officers (POWs waiting to be released) English literature at the end of the war.

Recent holders of the Morton Bloomfield Fellowship include Susanna Fein (2009–10), Tara Williams, Laura Ashe (2015–16), Ad Putter (2017–18), Anthony Bale (2018–19), and Sebastian Sobecki (2022-23).

His major works included The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept (1952); Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth Century Apocalypse (1961); with Leonard Newmark A Linguistic Introduction to the History of English (1963); Essays and Explorations: Studies in Language and Literature (1970); Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1110-1500 (1979); and, posthumously, with Charles W. Dunn The Role of the Poet in Early Societies (1989).

In 1993 Elizabeth Walsh and Susie M. Barretta edited a collection of his essays from the last 17 years of his life and published them as The Light of Learning.

In honor of his career and becoming emeritus, Larry Benson and Siegfried Wenzel in 1982 edited a festschrift for Bloomfield, The Wisdom of Poetry.