Background

George Philip Krapp was born on September 1, 1872 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. He was the second child and second son of Martin and Louisa (Adams) Krapp.

Education

Krapp prepared for college at Wittenberg Academy, Springfield, Ohio, and in 1894 was graduated from Wittenberg College, in the same city. The next three years he devoted to graduate study at Johns Hopkins University, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1899; his thesis was published under the title The Legend of Saint Patrick's Purgatory: Its Later Literary History (1900).

Career

In 1897-98 Krapp was instructor in English at the Horace Mann School in New York City, and from 1897 to 1907 instructor in English at both Teachers College and Columbia University, becoming adjunct professor of English at Columbia in 1907. After years (1908 - 10) as professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, he returned to Columbia, to spend the remainder of his life there as professor of English.

His greatest interest was in the study of the English language in America, a field in which he deservedly ranks as a pioneer.

Probably the best known of his children's books are In Oldest England (1912), Tales of True Knights (1921), The Kitchen Porch (1923), and America, the Great Adventure (1924). His modernization in verse of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1932), selected by the Literary Guild as its book of the month for December 1932, was no isolated effort, but the product of many years of study and private practice of poetic expression.

Achievements

• To knowledge of the earliest English texts Krapp made many significant contributions; his first important work was Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles; Two Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poems (1906), and at the time of his death he was engaged on a complete edition of the extant Anglo-Saxon poetical texts, three volumes of which had appeared, The Junius Manuscript (1931), The Vercelli Book (1932), and The Paris Psalter and The Meters of Boethius (1932). His books The Pronunciation of Standard English in America (1919) and The English Language in America (2 vols. , 1925), based on first-hand observations of American speech and on collections from older sources made over a period of years, were the first comprehensive attempt to give to the study of American English a sound historical and scientific basis.

Works

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  • In Oldest England

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Modern English Its Growth and Present Use

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius

    (Book V of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, A Collective Ed...)

  • The Vercelli Book

    (Volume II of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, the poetical...)

  • Troilus and Cressida (Modern Library Classics)

    (Often called the first great English novel, Troilus and C...)

  • Andreas And The Fates Of The Apostles: Two Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poems

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Views

An unrelenting foe of pedantry and purism, he insisted that standards of speech should be based on the observation of current cultivated usage rather than on the sometimes arbitrary rules of grammarians.

Personality

Over and above his more narrowly professional activities, he was a man of wide cultural interests and a keen student of the world about him. He was always happy to put his knowledge of medieval story and of American history and contemporary life into forms which would attract children.

His former students at Columbia remember him as a wise and sympathetic teacher, who made whatever he taught them seem a vital and inseparable part of the life of the human race.

Connections

On December 27, 1911, he married Elisabeth, daughter of Carl Fredrik von Saltza, of New York City; their children were Elizabeth, Robert, and Philip.

Father:

Martin Krapp

Mother:

Louisa (Adams) Krapp

Spouse:

Elisabeth von Saltza

Daughter:

Elizabeth

Son:

Robert

Son:

Philip