Werner Habicht (29 January 1930 – 5 November 2022) was a German scholar of English literature and culture and an internationally acclaimed authority in the field of Shakespeare studies in particular.
During his academic career, he held Chairs in English Studies at the Universities of Heidelberg (1966–70), Bonn (1970-78), and Würzburg (1978–95).
[1][4] Alongside his Presidency of the German Shakespeare Society between 1976 and 1987, he was a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften),[5] as well as being a corresponding (elected) member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) in Mainz,[1] an honorary Vice-President of the International Shakespeare Association and an honorary member of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA).
[6] Habicht was recognized as one of his generation’s leading lights in German Shakespeare Studies, as well as being a literary scholar of international renown.
[4] He was also the founding editor of English and American Studies in Germany (1969–82), editor of the Shakespeare Jahrbuch (West) between 1980 and 1995,[3][4] and co-editor of a bilingual edition of Shakespeare’s plays, several volumes of essays, and a major literary encyclopaedia, Der Literatur Brockhaus (8 vols., 2nd ed.