November 14, 2011
Carleton’s Renaissance Man
While many English scholars study Shakespeare or other Renaissance luminaries, Don Beecher is fascinated by what he calls the minor worthies of the period. During the past four decades, Beecher has revived the literary creations of lesser-known Renaissance authors and playwrights — many of whom are as relevant and illuminative as their more famous contemporaries. Preparing these critical editions is arduous, but this long-time member of the English department says he enjoys both the challenge and seeing the final publications come to life.
Beecher came to Carleton in the early 1970s, where he quickly became a popular instructor before new academic opportunity emerged at the end of the decade. A scarcity of continental Renaissance plays available in English proved an obstacle to research, so Beecher joined forces with an Italian studies colleague to source and publish the much-needed works at Carleton. This unique project started life as the Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation Series and soon became part of a fledgling publishing house called Dovehouse Editions Inc., named for a famous Elizabethan pavan.
We became a complete cottage industry. We learned about editing, funding, typesetting, printing, and marketing, all from the ground up.
“We became a complete cottage industry,” says Beecher, of the venture that produced Renaissance dramas from across Europe. “We learned about editing, funding, typesetting, printing, and marketing, all from the ground up.”
Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, many Dovehouse titles were adopted as course textbooks, and some of the dramas went on to be theatrically produced. By then there were four series, and in a good year, as many as a dozen new titles might go to press. Beecher eventually assumed sole responsibility for Dovehouse, meaning that he also stored the entire catalogue of books and shipped orders to customers.
“Over the years, I probably carried 70,000 books to the post office,” Beecher laughs. “I had books lined up in my basement, all around the furnace, and one whole garage was full of them, too.”
Beecher didn’t let the book business impede his teaching and research work during that time, managing to author 27 books of his own over the course of his Dovehouse tenure.
In 2005, the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies at the University of Toronto took over Dovehouse Editions, which, by then, had produced 104 titles. Beecher remains an active editor to this day, keeping his pen in the literary landscape.
Beecher’s career contributions and passionate enthusiasm haven’t gone unnoticed by the wider academic community. Held in high regard by leading scholars in Renaissance studies around the world, he has been a visiting professor at schools across North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific.
He was honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies in 2003, was selected as a Carleton Chancellor’s Professor in 2008, and received the 2010 Marston Lafrance Research Fellowship. His colleagues consider Beecher’s boundless energy to be an inspiration.
“Don’s so congenial and truly wears his honours lightly,” says Paul Keen, chair of the English department. “He’s committed to the department and his students love him.”
These days, Beecher has turned his research sights to folklore and to what the cognitive sciences might reveal about Renaissance literature. He’ll soon launch a collection of early Italian short stories in translation with lengthy commentaries on these often ancient tales, a project he describes as the most exciting yet in a long career.
“I haven’t run out of things to do,” he says.
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