R. J. Parish

Richard John Parish (1948-2022) was a scholar of French literature. He was Professor of French at the University of Oxford between 1996 and 2015.

Career Born in 1948, Parish was educated at Newcastle University, graduating with a BA in 1970. He then completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford;

Parish was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Liverpool in 1973; and retired in 2015, since when he has been an emeritus professor. He gave the Bampton Lectures in 2009.

He died on 1 January 2022.

Selected publications

Monographs

Pascal's Lettres Provinciales: A Study in Polemic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Racine: The Limits of Tragedy (Paris, Seattle, Tubingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1993). Catholic Particularity in Seventeenth-Century French Writing: "Christianity is Strange" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Editions or translations of texts

(ed.) Abbé de Choisy et Abbé de Dangeau: Quatre Dialogues: I. Sur l'lmmortaluté de l'Ame II. Sur l'Existence de Dieu III. Sur la Providence IV. Sur la Religion; suivis de Pierre Jurieu: Apologie d'un tour nouveau pour les Quatre Dialogues de M. l'abbé de Dangeau (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1981). (ed.) Moliere, Le Tartuffe (Bristol: Bristol Classical Texts, 1994). (ed.) Racine, Berenice (Paris: Gallimard, 1994). (ed.) Racine, Phedre (London: Bristol Classical Texts, 1996). (ed.) Scarron: Le Roman Comique, Critical Guides to French Texts, no. 119 (Valencia: Grant and Cutler, 1999). (ed.) Jean de La Bruyère [et Louis-Ellies du Pin], Dialogues posthumes sur le quiétisme (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2005). (ed.) Éloge et pensées de Pascal: édition établie par Condorcet, annotée par Voltaire (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2008).