About Douglas Bush
Lived 1896 – 1983 (aged 86–87). Douglas Bush was an American literary critic, journalist and literary scholar.
John Nash Douglas Bush (1896–1983) was a literary critic and literary historian. He taught for most of his life at Harvard University, where his students included many of the most prominent scholars, writers, and academics of several generations, including Walter Jackson Bate, Neil Rudenstine, Paul Auster and Aharon Lichtenstein.
Bush's textual criticism on Shakespeare and John Milton was widely influential. His English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century remains a standard reference work.
He received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1923.
Major works The Renaissance and English Humanism (1939) English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, 1600-1660 (1st ed. 1945, 2d ed. 1962) (reprinted as): The Early Seventeenth Century 1600-1660: Jonson, Donne, and Milton (The Oxford History of English Literature, 1990) Science and English Poetry: A Historical Sketch, 1590-1950 (1950) Classical Influences in Renaissance Literature (1952) Prefaces to Renaissance Literature (1965) Engaged and Disengaged (1966)
Editions John Keats. Selected Poems and Letters (1959) John Milton. The Complete Poetical Works (1965) A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton. Volume I: The Latin and Greek Poems (1970)
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Important facts
People in Douglas Bush's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Douglas Bush's
Frequently asked questions
Who was Douglas Bush?
American literary critic (1896–1983)
When was Douglas Bush born?
Douglas Bush was born in 1896 in Morrisburg.
When did Douglas Bush die?
Douglas Bush died on 2 March 1983 in Boston.
What was Douglas Bush's occupation?
Douglas Bush was a literary critic, journalist and literary scholar.
What nationality was Douglas Bush?
Douglas Bush was American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Douglas Bush. https://biography.guide/douglas-bush/
MLA: "Douglas Bush." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/douglas-bush/.
Chicago: "Douglas Bush." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/douglas-bush/.
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