Emeritus Professor Elliott Forsyth
Honorary Professorial Fellow
Contact
Tel. 03 9857 4050
Email: elliott_forsyth@optusnet.com.au
Biography
Elliott Forsyth did his undergraduate studies at the University of Adelaide, where he obtained an Honours B.A. in French and a Diploma in Education. After teaching at The Friends’ School in Tasmania for three years, he undertook postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne and graduated as Doctor of the University of Paris in 1954. He held positions as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide from 1955 to 1966, and was seconded as Visiting Professor of French to the University of Wisconsin (USA) in 1963-65. He was appointed Foundation Professor of French at La Trobe University, Melbourne, in 1966, and held that position until he retired in 1987. After retirement, he spent a short time as Acting Professor of French at the University of Melbourne in 1992. Since that time, he has been actively engaged in research and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Adelaide for his publications on the literature of the French Protestant Reformation in 2006. He is a Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators.
Research Field
Elliott Forsyth has worked primarily on French literature of the 16th and 17th centuries, with a special interest in early French tragedy, lyric poetry of the Renaissance and the literary and religious works of the Protestant Reformation. He also takes an interest in French maritime exploration of Australia and in educational questions relating to language teaching.
Selected Publications
Books
La Tragédie française de Jodelle à Corneille (1553-1640): le thème de la vengeance, Paris Nizet, 1962, 484 pp ; Paris, Honoré Champion, 1994, xxx+484 pp. (new, updated edition, Études et Essais sur la Renaissance V).
Jean de La Taille, «Saül le furieux», «La Famine, ou Les Gabeonites», tragédies (critical edition), Paris, Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1968, 183 pp. (Reprinted 1998.)
Concordance des «Tragiques» d’Agrippa d’Aubigné, Melbourne, La Trobe University Press, 1984, 1318 pp.
(As co-ordinating editor and principal translator, with J. Bonnemains and B. Smith) Baudin in Australian Waters: the artwork of the French Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Lands (1800-1804), with a complete descriptive catalogue of the drawings and paintings of Australian subjects held at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre, France, Melbourne, Oxford U.P. Australia (in association with the Australian Academy of the Humanities), 1988, 347 pp.
La Justice de Dieu: Les Tragiques d’Agrippa d’Aubigné et la Réforme protestante en France au XVIe siècle, Paris , Honoré Champion, 2005, 567 pp. (Essais et Études sur la Renaissance LVII)
Report
(With R.F. Jackson and R.H. Samuel), Survey of Foreign Language teaching in the Australian Universities (1965-73) – First Report of the Committee on Foreign Languages, Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1975, 78 pp.
Chapters or articles in books etc.
The Relevance of Rabelais: some thoughts on the place of French Studies in an Australian University, La Trobe University Inaugural Lecture, 1970 (brochure)
“The Problem of communication and the changing pattern of language studies in Australian education”, in Towards the Learning Society, Melbourne, Australian College of Education, 1975, pp. 139-59
“The Tensions of Classicism in the French Theatre of the Seventeenth Century”, in The Classical Temper in Western Europe, Melbourne, Oxford U.P., 1983, pp. 47-61
“D’Aubigné, Calvin et le comble des péchés”, in Mélanges sur la littérature de la Renaissance à la mémoire de V.-L. Saulnier, Geneva, Droz, 1984, pp. 263-72
“The Bible in French Reformation Literature: Jean de La Taille and Agrippa d’Aubigné”, in E. Osborn and L. McIntosh (eds.),The Bible and European Literature, Melbourne, Academia press, 1987, pp. 8-24
“French Exploration in the Pacific”, in J. Hardy and A. Frost (eds.), Studies from Terra Australis to Australia, Canberra, Highland Press and Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1989, pp. 93-97
“The Australian Aborigines as seen by the Baudin Expedition of 1800-1804”, in M. Blackman (ed.), Australian Aborigines and the French, Sydney, University of NSW (French-Australian Research Centre), 1990, pp. 111-33.
“Guérin de Bouscal et le dilemme tragique”, in J. Riesz and A. Ricard (eds.), Semper Aliquid Novi : Mélanges offerts à Albert Gérard, Tübingen, Gunter Narr, 1990, pp. 347-56
“Les Tragiques et l’idée de la Providence au temps de la Réforme”, in Poétiques d’Aubigné, Actes du Colloque de Genève, mai 1996, pp. 230-9.
Journal Articles
“The Tragic Dilemma in Horace”, Australian Journal of French Studies, IV (1967), pp. 162-76
“Conserving a nation’s language resources: an American tale with an Australian moral”, Australian Journal of Education, 12 (1968), pp. 113-24
“French Renaissance drama and its critics: a reply to Donald Stone Jr”, Renaissance Drama, new series II (1969), pp. 207-20
“Le Concept de l’inspiration poétique chez Ronsard”, Revue de l’Histoire Littéraire de la France 75 (1975), pp. 515-30. (Reprinted in Lectures de Ronsard : «Les Amours» (éd. C. Nédelec), Rennes, Presses Universitaires, 1997, pp. 23-37.)
“Le message prophétique d’Agrippa d’Aubigné", Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, XL (1979), p. 187-97
“Baudelaire and the Petrarchan tradition”, Australian Journal of French Studies XVI (1979), pp. 187-97
Editor of Australian Journal of French Studies XXI, no. 3 (1984), “Music and Literature”
“L’Elaboration d’une concordance des Tragiques”, Albineana (Cahiers d’Aubigné) I, 1988, pp. 59-64
“Language Studies and the White Paper “, Journal of Australian Studies, 25 (1989), pp. 101-3
Editor (with P. Hambly and J.L. Kirsop) of Australian Journal of French Studies XXIX, 1 (1992), “Studies in memory of J.G. Cornell”
“The Role of the Psalms in d’Aubigné’s Les Tragiques, Australian Journal of French Studies XXIX, 1 (1992), pp. 14-29. (A French version, “Le Rôle des Psaumes dans Les Tragiques”, with biblical index, appears in Albineana (Cahiers d’Aubigné), 1996, pp. 33-60.)
“Calvin’s concept of the Justice of God “, Australian Journal of French Studies XXXI, 3 (1994), pp. 274-91
“Le Théâtre français de la Renaissance : a question of method” (Review Article), Australian Journal of French Studies XXXIV, 2 (1997), pp. 239-52
“La Portée morale et religieuse des tragédies bibliques dans le théâtre protestant du XVIe siècle”, Op. cit. 11 (1998), pp. 43-49 (Op. cit. is the name of the journal.)
Other Activities
Elliott Forsyth took part in negotiations (in collaboration with the late Professor Michael Spencer of the University of Queensland) with French Government authorities and local representatives leading to the establishment in Noumea, New Caledonia, of CREIPAC, an institution providing short-term study opportunities in a French-speaking environment for students of French, especially from the universities of Australia and New Zealand. In the 1980s, students from La Trobe joined with others from Monash, Adelaide and Melbourne to take part in three-week residential courses at CREIPAC.
Since retirement, Elliott Forsyth has taken classes at the Centre for Adult Education, Melbourne, on aspects of French life and culture and has led cultural tours to France under the auspices of the CAE and a private tourist agency.