In Memoriam Jean-Marie Maguin (1943–2022)

Abstract

Jean-Marie Maguin passed away on the morning of Saturday 14 May 2022. Born on 31 January 1943, he was Professor Emeritus of Elizabethan Studies at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 as well as a long-time co-general editor of Cahiers Élisabéthains, founded in 1972 by Antoine Demadre. Jean-Marie co-edited the journal first with Jean Fuzier from 1989 to 1994, then with Charles Whitworth from 1994 to 2001. Cahiers owes him a debt of immense gratitude for his indefatigable will to improve the journal and steadfast efforts to expand its international dimension, and for his leadership and thoroughness as a general editor. Many will remember him for his collegial, amiable, and humble manner in which he worked alongside his co-editors and the entire team. His activities naturally expanded beyond the journal itself (although he had a real knack for finding new and exciting authors for Cahiers everywhere he went). He was a resolute supporter of the Société Française Shakespeare, founded in 1975, for which he served as treasurer for 10 years before becoming its president from 1997 to 2003. Recruited in 1967 at Université de Montpellier, Jean-Marie co-founded the Centre d’études et de recherches élisabéthaines (CÉRÉ) with Antoine Demadre and Jean Fuzier in 1970, when the university split into three faculties including Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, and at a time when research centres were flourishing in French universities. In 1977, he defended his seminal Doctorat d’État, or professorial thesis, on ‘La Nuit dans le théâtre de Shakespeare et de ses prédécesseurs’ [Night in the theatre of Shakespeare and his predecessors], published in 1980 and which articulated the Shakespearean night scenes with their classical precedents and their medieval interactions, thus anticipating current discussions that challenge the divide between the medieval and Renaissance periods. Vigorous and determined, he and Fuzier worked tirelessly to have CÉRÉ officially associated with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique In Memoriam