Charles Eliot Norton
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{{Infobox Person
| name = Charles Eliot Norton
| image = Charles Eliot Norton 76 years old.jpg
| caption = Charles Eliot Norton, circa 1903
| birth_date = {{birth date|1827|11|16|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
| death_date = {{death date|1908|10|21|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
| occupation = Art history professor, literary scholar
}}
'''Charles Eliot Norton, [[Esquire|Esq.]],<ref>"Ralph Waldo Emerson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right. Engraved and published by S.A. Schoff ... from an original drawing by Sam W. Rowse in the possession of Charles Eliot Norton, Esq.; S.A. Schoff." Library of Congress [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.07398].</ref>''' ([[November 16]], [[1827]] - [[October 21]], [[1908]]) was an [[United States|American]] scholar and [[intellectual#'Men of letters'|man of letters]].
==Biography==
Norton was born at [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. His father, [[Andrews Norton]] (1786-1853) was a [[Unitarian]] [[theology|theologian]], and Dexter professor of sacred literature at [[Harvard University|Harvard]]; his mother was Catherine Eliot, and [[Charles William Eliot]], president of Harvard, was his cousin.
Norton graduated from Harvard in 1846, and started in business with an East Indian trading firm in [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]], travelling to [[India]] in 1849. After a tour in [[Europe]], he returned to America in 1851, and thenceforward devoted himself to literature and art.
He translated [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s ''Vita Nuova'' (1860 and 1867) and the ''[[Divina Commedia]]'' (1891-91-92), 3 vols.). He worked tirelessly as secretary to the [[Loyal Publication Society]] during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], communicating with newspaper editors across the country, including the journalist [[Jonathan Baxter Harrison]] who became a lifelong close friend (Turner 1999). From 1864 to 1868, he edited the ''North American Review'', in association with [[James Russell Lowell]]. In 1861 he and Lowell helped [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] in his translation of Dante and in the starting of the informal Dante Club. In 1862 Norton married Susan Sedgwick.
In [[1875]] he was appointed professor of the history of art at Harvard, a chair which was created for him and which he held until retirement in 1898. The [[Archaeological Institute of America]] chose him as its first president (1879-1890). From 1856 to 1874 Norton spent much time in travel and residence on the continent of Europe and in England, and it was during this period that his friendships began with [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[John Ruskin]], [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]] and [[Leslie Stephen]], an intimacy which did much to bring American and English men of letters into close personal relation. Norton had a peculiar genius for friendship, and it is on his personal influence rather than on his literary productions that his claim to fame rests. In [[1881]] he inaugurated the Dante Society, whose first presidents were Longfellow, Lowell and Norton himself. From 1882 onward he confined himself to the study of Dante, his professorial duties, and the editing and publication of the literary memorials of many of his friends. One of his many students at [[Harvard]] was [[James Loeb]].
In [[1883]] came the ''Letters of Carlyle and Emerson''; in 1886, 1887 and 1888, ''Carlyle's Letters and Reminiscences''; in 1894, the ''Orations and Addresses of [[George William Curtis]]'' and the ''Letters of Lowell''. Norton was also made Ruskin's [[literary executor]], and he wrote various introductions for the American "Brantwood" edition of Ruskin's works. His other publications include ''Notes of Travel and Study in Italy'' (1859), and an ''Historical Study of Church-building in the Middle Ages: Venice, Siena, Florence'' (1880). He organized exhibitions of the drawings of [[J.M.W. Turner|Turner]] (1874) and of Ruskin (1879), for which he compiled the catalogues. He died at "Shady-hill," the house where he had been born. He bequeathed the more valuable portion of his library to Harvard. He had the degrees of Litt.D. (Cambridge) and D.C.L. (Oxford), as well as the L.H.D. of Columbia and the LL.D. of Harvard and of Yale.
Today, his name is borne by a series of lectures ([[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]]) held annually by distinguished professors at Harvard.
==See also==
* [[Eliot family]]
==External links==
* {{gutenberg author|id=Charles_Eliot_Norton_(1827-1908)|name=Charles Eliot Norton}}
* [http://www.cityofboston.gov/parks/openspaces/main.asp?ID=82 Eliot Norton Park] in Boston, MA
==References==
<references />
Other:
* Turner, James C. 1999. ''The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
* {{1911}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, Charles Eliot}}
[[Category:1827 births]]
[[Category:1908 deaths]]
[[fr:Charles Eliot Norton]]