Charles Denis Boak (1932–2015)

Abstract

Denis Boak, Professor of French at University of Western Australia from 1975 to 1995, died peacefully in the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth, on 5 July 2015 after a quiet but lengthy struggle with failing health. He was in his eighty-third year, and is survived by Estelle to whom he had been married for forty-nine years. Those who knew Denis will remember him as a scholar of exceptional erudition and intellectual range. He was, for many, a living illustration of the virtues of constant reading, and we are the poorer for having lost the scholar with his learning, and the man with his insights, his curiosity, and his irreverent wit.Born in 1932 in Hazel Grove, near Manchester, England, Denis attended Manchester Grammar School on a scholarship from 1943 to 1950. After a year of national service with the Royal Artillery he went on to Clare College, Cambridge. Graduating in Modern and Medieval Languages in 1954, he proceeded to a year's study as a French Government scholar at the Sorbonne before returning to Cambridge to embark on a PhD. completed thesis was later to become his first major book, Roger Martin du Gard (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963). From Cambridge, Denis went on in 1961 to his first full-time academic post as Lecturer in Modern Languages at the University of Hong Kong.It was in Hong Kong that the formidable range of Denis's reading began to take centre-stage in his teaching and research. In addition to courses in French and German language and literature, he taught a comparative course in European literature covering Ibsen, Chekhov, Pirandello, Kafka, Mann, Dostoevsky, Proust and others. Never one to accept confinement within the constraints of a single field, Denis would subsequently give free rein to his comparative interests. Alongside his studies of major twentieth-century French authors, he would go on to write on French-Canadian literature, on Realism in the nineteenth century and beyond, and he would develop an unparalleled knowledge of the literature of war and deportation in its broader European context. And he was as happy to write on Han Suyin, T.E. Lawrence, and Don Charlwood, as on Maupassant, Malraux, or Sartre. His last published paper, The Mimetic Imperative: War, Fiction, Realism, in Romance Studies, 30: 3-4 (2013), 217-28, was an immensely erudite piece that combined a number of these separate areas of interest in a fascinating overview that, in Denis's inimitable style, pulled no punches.Denis returned to the UK from Hong Kong when he was appointed Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Hull, starting in 1966. That same year, he and Estelle married (they had met in Hong Kong some five years earlier). Through Estelle, who worked in the University Library, Denis became friends with Philip Larkin, whose unsentimental view of life was one that he instinctively understood. During his time in Hull, Denis wrote and published his second book, Andre Malraux (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). However, in 1969 he was invited to take up his first Chair of French. He and Estelle moved to the University of Calgary, remaining there until 1975. During the six years of his North American career, Denis completed his third book, Jules Romains (Boston: Twayne, 1974).In 1975 Denis was offered the Chair of French at University of Western Australia as successor to James Lawler. He held this post until 1995 when he became a Professorial Research Fellow until his retirement in 2000. During his twenty years in the Chair, he served thirteen as Head of Department. He also served with distinction as Editor of Essays in French Literature (as it was then called) from 1975 through to 2000. This was a crucial period during which the journal developed its international profile, while its range of contributions - particularly through the inclusion of increasing numbers of articles on francophone literatures outside France - reflected changing notions of what constituted the discipline of French studies. …