An anonymous gift from a grateful member of the Class of 1982 will honor Marie Borroff, Sterling Professor Emeritus of English, as well as a noted writer, critic and poet..
The gift will establish the Marie Borroff Scholarship Fund, which will award financial aid to undergraduates majoring in English.
Professor Borroff was the second woman ever tenured at Yale College, and she has been for many years a role model for other women students and faculty.
Her scholarly interests range from the pre-medieval world to 20th-century poetry. She achieved renown for her verse translations of the Middle English poems "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "Pearl," as well as her 1962 book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Stylistic and Metrical Study." In 1979 she published "Language and the Poet: Verbal Artistry in Frost, Stevenson, and Moore," a scholarly work that has been hailed for shedding new light on the three poets.
Professor Borroff's own poetry has been published in a number of journals, including The American Scholar, The New Republic and The Yale Review.
A 1923 graduate of the University of Chicago, Professor Borroff also earned her master's degree there. She taught English at Smith College before studying at Yale for her Ph.D., receiving it in 1956. After temporary positions at both Smith and Yale, she became a permanent member of Yale's English department in 1960, and she was tenured in 1962. She was named professor in 1965, the William Lampson Professor in 1971 and Sterling Professor in 1993.
During her more than 30 years with the University, she has held many administrative posts, serving as associate chair of the English department 1968-69 and 1979-81, director of graduate studies in English 1970-73 and director of the division of the humanities 1985-88.