Davis, Walter R.

Walter Richard Davis (1928-2006): Professor of English at Brown University, 1982-2002. Davis was graduated from Trinity College (1951) and received his doctorate from Yale University in 1957. Before Brown, Davis taught at the University of Notre Dame and at Williams College. A scholar of English Renaissance literature, he wrote on Elizabethan poetry and fiction. Among other scholarly books and articles, he wrote a definitive text on Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia and edited the complete work of Thomas Campion. An active collector of ancient Greek coins, Walter was one of 16 elected members of The Society Historia Numorum in Boston. At Brown, Davis taught courses on Milton, Spenser and Campion and in creative writing. In recognition of his exceptional talent as a teacher and guide, Walter received from Brown in 2000 the John Rowe Workman Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities.