Julia Bolton Holloway

Julia Bolton Holloway (born 14 April 1937) is a European literary scholar. She is Professor Emerita of Medieval Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Early life and education Holloway was born on 14 April 1937 in Marylebone, London, and later lived on the pilgrimage road to Canterbury in Sussex. Her parents were the writer John Robert Glorney Bolton and Sybil Margaret Rutherford. She is also the great granddaughter of Sir James Roberts. Her doctoral thesis, titled "The Figure of the Pilgrim in Medieval Poetry," was later published as the book

Academic career Holloway worked as a Teaching Assistant at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967-71; then, while writing the dissertation, Holloway taught at Quincy University (Illinois) from 1971-74. After graduating, she worked as an Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University from 1974-1981, where she was among the first generation of women to teach at the university. She then taught in the Humanities and Comparative Literature departments at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1981-92, chairing the Graduate Committee on Medieval Studies before becoming Associate Professor and Director of Medieval Studies, in 1987, and Professor Emerita, in 1992.

Holloway's research is focused on the literature of the Middle Ages as well as Victorian literature, including the works of Dante, Dante's teacher Brunetto Latini, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and women contemplatives such as, for example, Julian of Norwich and Birgitta of Sweden. One recent discovery involved unearthing a previously unknown Dante manuscript.

Her scholarship has been shaped by Phillip Damon, Charles Jones, Brendan O’Hehir, Sir Richard Southern, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, Julian Jaynes, John V. Fleming, Robert Hollander, William S. Heckscher, and Edward P. Nolan.

Personal life Having made the pilgrimages she had studied to Canterbury, Compostela, Rome, Jerusalem, and Sinai, she retired early from her university career and returned to England, where she entered the Anglican convent of the Community of the Holy Family at Holmhurst St Mary, becoming a novice in 1992 and serving as active librarian from 1993-96.

Upon closure of the Order, Holloway left England and became custodian, restorer, researcher, and librarian of the English Cemetery in Florence, which came into her care because she had edited the Penguin Classics edition of Aurora Leigh and Other Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who is buried there. While living here as a hermit nun for over a quarter of a century, she has taught literacy and restoration skills to the local Roma workers who assist her in tending the property.

Selected works