Peter Connelly

The Connelly Lectures in English are named for Peter Connelly, a member of the English Department at Grinnell College from 1970 until his death in 2000 and the Carter-Adams Professor of Literature at Grinnell beginning in 1989. An active scholar throughout his teaching career, Connelly published two articles on Pope's Iliad and others on teaching and college literacy, in addition to giving numerous papers at professional meetings.

Connelly's scholarly interest in Pope's translation of Homer reflected a broader interest in the translator's status as "a creator and not a transmitter of an original text," as Connelly's Grinnell colleague Michael Cavanagh puts it. Cavanagh continues: "this was not merely an idea that Peter had but a kind of axiom of his life. It permeated his thinking on every subject.... Peter was really a creator--a term, I might add, he would completely reject."

Another Grinnell colleague, D.A. Smith, called Connelly "emphatically a man of this world whether by that be meant the petit pays of Grinnell College or the wider worlds of state, of nation, and of letters. He knew the duties and the rewards of citizenship in each, and he received the grateful thanks and the unqualified admiration of his fellow citizens everywhere." Such admiration came from Connelly's students, including the Grinnell Class of 1999, which made Connelly one of its honorary members, saying, "Peter Connelly is a professor who has been as active outside the classroom as he has been inside. His vast knowledge of literature and literary theory and his intellectual integrity are impressive.... He is willing and ready to advise students on their career and life choices; he is an outstanding teacher who remains a friend to many of his students." In accepting his honor, he said, "I think I've never been in better company."