Mary Ann Nevins Radzinowicz

Mary Ann Nevins Radzinowicz (April 18, 1925 – March 15, 2023) was an American academic and scholar of English literature. She was a leading authority on John Milton and 17th century English literature. She was Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of English Literature Emerita at Cornell University.

Career Radzinowicz read English at Radcliffe College and took her M.A. and PhD degrees at Columbia University. She was awarded two Fulbright Scholarships to attend the University of Cambridge,

Radzinowicz retired in 1990 and moved with her partner, Irish writer Sarah Poyntz, to Ballyvaughan, County Clare, Ireland. and she died there on March 15, 2023, at the age of 97.

Works Her best known-book is the magisterial Toward Samson Agonistes: The Growth of Milton's Mind (1978); it was followed by Milton's Epics and the Book of Psalms (1989), both published by Princeton University Press. She has also written scholarly articles including the influential "Milton and the Tragic Women of Genesis" in 1995. She has also edited a number of books including American Colonial Prose: John Smith to Thomas Jefferson (1984, Cambridge University Press). She is most associated with her work on Milton and 17th century English literature.

Awards and honours Radzinowicz was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982 for her research on Milton's epics and the Book of Psalms: the fellowship is awarded to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts".

In 1987 the Milton Society of American named her an Honored Scholar.

In 2012, she was honoured with a Festschrift, Milton's Rival Hermeneutics: 'Reason Is But Choosing' (edited by Richard J. DuRocher and Margaret Olofson Thickstun, Duquesne University Press, 2012).