Anne Holmes (1929-2017)
1 May 2017
I.M. Anne Holmes
30 April 1929 – 9 February 2017
Anne Holmes studied in Cambridge and wrote her doctorate there on the poet Jules Laforgue. She taught French at Hertford between 1973 and 1996, becoming Fellow and Tutor for Admissions from 1989. Author of Jules Laforgue and Poetic Innovation (OUP, 1993), she also wrote numerous articles on Laforgue, Mallarmé, and Verlaine. She wore her considerable erudition lightly, but undergraduates benefitted greatly from her understanding of the connections between French and English literature, as well as painting and music. She was a popular and supportive tutor, who, though often described as modest herself, encouraged her students to be bold and ambitious.
A fuller tribute will be published in the Hertford Magazine.