Dr. Harold Roland Swardson
Dr. Harold Roland Swardson, a professor of English at Ohio University for 47 years, died on Dec. 22, according to his obituary.
“Generations of students were treated to his courses on the Bible as Literature, 17th-Century Poetry and Great Books. Long after he could have taken it easy with graduate seminars, he continued to teach freshman classes because, he said, it was both harder and more worthwhile,” the obituary says. “He and his wife, Mary Anne Swardson, moved to Fort Collins in 2013 to be near their youngest daughter, Christine Swardson Olver. He kept working, publishing three major academic papers, all in Philosophical Forum, after the age of 92.”
Swardson’s books include Poetry and the Fountain of Light: Observations on the Conflict Between Christian and Classical Traditions in Seventeenth-Century Poetry, (drawn from his Ph.D. thesis), Understanding Christianity: With Help from Dante and Milton, Today’s Sex and Yesterday’s Poetry: Readings from the Erotic Renaissance, Teach Me Love: Understanding from the Renaissance Poets, and Execution by Idiots: How American Civilians Learned to Make an Amphibious Assault.
“Roland was the last rationalist,” says Dr. Samuel Crowl, Trustee Professor of English Emeritus. “He insisted on the primacy of reasoned inquiry and repeatedly rose to the challenge of students, particularly in the ’60s and ’70s, who would respond, ‘Now don’t try to reason with me.'”
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