He was an instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana from 1913 to 1918.[4] During the First World War he edited an Army publication Atenshun 21. He left Illinois for Columbia University, where he taught from 1919 until 1958: he was a member of Columbia's English faculty and held an emeritus position there from 1958 until his death in 1966. In 1919, also, Loomis married his first wife, Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis, (1882–1921), a medieval scholar who shared his interest in Arthurian literature (Folklore 38.4 1927 405–407).
Loomis wrote ten scholarly books and numerous journal articles. His book A Mirror of Chaucer's World, published in 1965 by Princeton, is a pictorial presentation of drawings, sculpture, paintings and other materials related to Geoffrey Chaucer and his age. His most notable book Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes, published by Columbia University in 1949, won the Haskins Medal of the Mediaeval Academy of America.
After the death of his first wife in 1921, Loomis married Laura Alandis Hibbard (1883–1960), with whom he collaborated in many of his research and writing efforts. He dedicated one of his final volumes to Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis and Laura Hibbard Loomis "in grateful and loving remembrance" (The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol published by the University of Wales 1963; and later by Princeton University, in 1991).
Loomis died on October 11, 1966, in Waterford, Connecticut.[7]
Works
Illustrations of Medieval Romance on Tiles from Chertsey Abbey (1916)
Freshman Readings (1925)
Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (1927)
The Art of Writing Prose (1930) with Mabel Louise Robinson, Helen Hull and Paul Cavanaugh
Models for Writing Prose (1931)
The Romance of Tristram and Ysolt (1931) translator
Tristan and Isolt: A study of the Sources of the Romance by Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis, 2d ed., expanded by a bibliography and critical essay on Tristan scholarship since 1912, by Roger Sherman Loomis (New York, B. Franklin, 1960)
Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art (1938) with Laura Hibbard Loomis
Introduction to Medieval Literature, Chiefly in England. Reading List and Bibliography (1939)
Representative Medieval And Tudor Plays (1942) editor with Henry W. Wells
The Fight for Freedom: College Reading in Wartime (1943) with Gabriel M. Liegey
Modern English Readings (1945) editor with Donald Lemen Clark
Medieval English Verse and Prose (1948) with Rudolph Willard
Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien De Troyes (1949)
Wales and the Arthurian Legend (1956)
Medieval Romances (1957) editor with Laura Hibbard Loomis
Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, A Collaborative History (1959) editor
The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol (1963)
The Development of Arthurian Romance (1963)
A Mirror of Chaucer's World (1965)
The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles: Especially Those in Great Britain and France (1973) expansion of Robert Huntington Fletcher's 1906 book
^"Sigmund Eisner, MAP Founding Member Passes Away" (PDF). Chronica. No. 2. Medieval Association of the Pacific. 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
^Young 2005, p. 420.
^ a b cEisner 2013, p. 382.
^ a b c dEisner 2013, p. 381.
^Ker & Lapidge 2002, p. 109.
^"Society Archives". International Arthurian Society. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
^Eisner 2013, p. 381; Marter 2011.
Bibliography
Eisner, Sigmund (2013) [1998]. "Roger Sherman Loomis (1887–1966)". In Damico, Helen (ed.). Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline. Volume 2: Literature and Philology. New York: Routledge. pp. 381–393. ISBN 978-1-317-73202-0.
Marter, Joan, ed. (2011). "Loomis, Roger Sherman". The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195335798.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-973926-4.
Young, Jonathan (2005). "Cambell, Joseph (1904–87)". In Shook, John R. (ed.). The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum. pp. 420–425. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199754663.001.0001. ISBN 978-1-84371-037-0.
Further reading
"Roger S. Loomis of Columbia Dies: An Authority on King Arthur and His Knights Was 78". The New York Times. October 12, 1966. p. 43. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
Studies in Medieval Literature: A Memorial Collection of Essays. 1970.
External links
The origins of the Holy Grail according to Roger Sherman Loomis
New York Times Obituary
LibraryThing
Sherman Genealogy Including Families of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, England. By Thomas Townsend Sherman ISBN 9781143159688