Editing Frances Yates (section)

==Biography==

===Youth: 1899&ndash;1913===
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=It seems to me now the Golden Age, in which the security and stability of the Victorian era were still intact and seemed the natural state of affairs, which would continue for ever (though in a less severe and easier form). It was not, of course, a golden age for all, but for me it was a time of perfect safety and happiness when I first put down roots of experience and inquiry in a world which made sense.|source=— Frances Yates, on her childhood{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=22}}}}

Frances Amelia Yates was born on 28 November 1899 in the southern English coastal town of [[Southsea]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=1}} She was the fourth child of middle-class parents, James Alfred and Hannah Malpas Yates, and had two sisters, Ruby and Hannah, and a brother, Jimmy.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=1, 3}} James was the son of a [[Royal Navy]] gunner, and occupied a senior position, overseeing the construction of [[dreadnoughts]]. He was a keen reader, ensuring that his children had access to plenty of books.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=2&ndash;3}}
James was a devout [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] Christian, influenced by the [[Oxford Movement]] and sympathetic to the [[Catholic Church]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=4}} Frances was christened in February 1900 at [[St Ann's Church, HMNB Portsmouth|St. Anne's Church in the dockyard]],{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=2}} although from an early age had doubts about Christianity and the literal accuracy of the [[Bible]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=8}}

In 1902, James was transferred to [[Chatham Dockyards]],{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=6}} and then in December 1903 he relocated to [[Glasgow]] to become superintendent of shipbuilding on the [[River Clyde]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=7, 16}} There, the family began attending the Scottish Episcopal Church of St. Mary.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=18&ndash;19}} James retired in 1911, although continued to offer his advice and expertise to the dockyards.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=19}} The family moved regularly over the coming years, from a farmhouse in [[Ingleton, North Yorkshire|Ingleton]], [[Yorkshire]], to [[Llandrindod Wells]], to [[Ripon]], to [[Harrogate]], and then to [[Oxton, Merseyside|Oxton]] in [[Cheshire]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=20&ndash;21}} They also took annual holidays to France each summer.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=3}}

Throughout this period, Yates's education was haphazard. In her early years, she was home schooled, being taught to read by her sisters before her mother took over her education as they moved away from home.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=3, 13&ndash;14}} When in Glasgow she briefly attended the private Laurel Bank School,{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=16}} but wouldn't attend school for two years after leaving the city.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=19}} Despite a lack of formal education, she read avidly, impressed by the plays of [[William Shakespeare]],{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=23}} and the poetry of the [[Romanticism|Romantics]] and [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood|Pre-Raphaelites]], in particular that of [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] and [[John Keats]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=32&ndash;33}} She also began to write; in March 1913, Yates published a short story in the ''Glasgow Weekly Herald''.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=16&ndash;18}} Aged 16 she began writing a diary, in which she stated that "my brother wrote poems, my sister writes novels, my other sister paints pictures and I, I must & ''will'' do something. I am not much good at painting, I am no good at all at music, so there is only writing left. So I will write."{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=24&ndash;26}}

===Early career: 1914&ndash;38===
In 1914, the [[First World War]] broke out; her brother joined the British Army, and was killed in battle in 1915.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=22}} As a result, she asserted that the "war broke our family... As a teenager I lived among the ruins."{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=29}}
Deciding to pursue a university education, she unsuccessfully sat the [[University of Oxford]] entrance exam, hoping to study History.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=30–31}} The family subsequently moved to [[Claygate|Claygate, Surrey]], settling into a newly-built house in which Yates lived until her death.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=39}} Her sisters had moved away, leaving Frances to care for her ageing parents,{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=41–42}} although she also regularly took the train to central London, where she spent much time reading and researching in the library of the [[British Museum]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=39}}
{{multiple image
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| footer = Yates's research focused on two Renaissance figures, [[John Florio]] (left) and [[Giordano Bruno]] (right).
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In the early 1920s she began her undergraduate studies in French at the [[University College, London]]. Enrolled as an [[External degree|external student]], she devoted herself to her studies, and did not socialise with other students. She was awarded her BA with first-class honours in May 1924.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=40, 43}} She published her first scholarly article in 1925, on "English Actors in Paris during the Lifetime of Shakespeare", which appeared in the inaugural issue of ''[[The Review of English Studies]]''.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=39}} She then embarked on an MA in French at the University of London, this time as an internal student. Her thesis was titled "Contribution to the Study of the French Social Drama in the Sixteenth Century", and in it she argued that the plays of this period could be seen as [[propaganda]] aimed at the illiterate population. Although authored for a degree in French, it was heavily historical, and showed Yates's interest in challenging prior assumptions and interpretations of the past. Supervised by Louis M. Brandin and F. Y. Eccles, she was awarded her MA on the basis of it in 1926.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=43–51}}<ref>[http://arthistorians.info/yatesf Yates's profile at arthistorians.info.]</ref> From 1929 to 1934, Yates taught French at the [[North London Collegiate School]], but disliked it as it left little time for her to devote to her research.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=42}}

While rummaging through the London [[Public Record Office]], she learned of [[John Florio]] in a 1585 testimonial.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=55–56}} Intrigued by him, she devoted her third scholarly paper to the subject of Florio: "John Florio at the French Embassy", which appeared in ''[[The Modern Language Review]]'' in 1929.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=60}} She proceeded to author a biography of Florio, ''John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare's England'', which [[Cambridge University Press]] published in 1934; they agreed to the publication on the condition that it be shortened and that Yates contributed £100 to its publication.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=61–62}} The book gained positive reviews and earned Yates the [[British Academy]]'s Mary Crawshaw Prize.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=65}} Having previously relied on self-taught Italian,{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=55}} in summer 1935 she spent several weeks at a course in the language held for scholars at [[Girton College]], [[University of Cambridge]]; here she developed lifelong friendships with Nesca Robb and [[Linetta de Castelvecchio]], both fellow scholars of the Renaissance.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=62–65}} Yates's second book was ''A Study of Love's Labour's Lost'', an examination of ''[[Love's Labour's Lost]]''. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 1936.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=66}}

Through her research into Florio, Yates had become intrigued by one of his associates, [[Giordano Bruno]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=56–57}} She translated Bruno's ''La Cena de la ceneri'' (''The Ash Wednesday Supper''), and added an introduction in which she argued against the prevailing view that Bruno had simply been a proponent of [[Copernicus]]' [[Heliocentrism|Heliocentric]] theories; instead she argued that he was calling for a return to Medieval Catholicism. She offered the book to Cambridge University Press, who declined to publish it, and later commented that it was "the worst of my efforts&nbsp;... it was lamentably ignorant of Renaissance thought and Renaissance magic."{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=57–58, 66–73}} In reassessing Bruno's thought, Yates had been influenced by a number of other scholars who had begun to recognise the role of magic and mysticism in Renaissance thought: French historian of science [[Pierre Duhem]], American historian [[Lynn Thorndike]], and Renaissance studies scholar Francis Johnson.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=58–60}} Yates's biographer Marjorie Jones suggested that this interpretation was partly influenced by her own religious views, which &ndash; influenced by the Romanticists and Pre-Raphaelites &ndash; adored Catholic ritual and were critical of the Protestant Reformation.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=71}}

===Joining the Warburg Institute: 1939&ndash;60===
One of Yates's friends, the historian and fellow Bruno scholar Dorothea Singer, introduced her to [[Edgar Wind]], Deputy Directory of the [[Warburg Institute]], at a weekend house party in [[Par, Cornwall]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=75}} At Wind's invitation, Yates contributed a paper on "Giordano Bruno's Conflict with Oxford" for the second issue of the ''Journal of the Warburg Institute'' in 1939, which she followed with "The Religious Policy of Giordano Bruno" in the third issue. In these articles, she did not yet associate Bruno with Hermeticism.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=76&ndash;77}} In 1941, the Warburg's Director [[Fritz Saxl]] offered Yates a job at the institute, then based in [[South Kensington]]; she agreed, taking on the post which revolved largely on editing the ''Journal'' but which also gave her much time to continue her independent research.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=77&ndash;78}} By this time, Britain had entered the [[Second World War]] against [[Nazi Germany]], and Yates involved herself in the war effort, being trained in [[first aid]] by the [[Red Cross]] and volunteered as an ARP ambulance attendant.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=88&ndash;89}} In 1941, her father died during an air raid, although the cause of death is not known.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=93}} Yates herself continued to battle with depression, and was deeply unhappy.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=78}}

[[File:Warburginst.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|The [[Warburg Institute]] in [[Woburn Square]], London]]
In 1943, Yates was awarded the [[British Federation of University Women]]'s [[Marion Reilly Award]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=99}} She also gave an address to the Federation's Committee on International Relations on "How will History be written if the Germans win this war?"{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=99}} At the Warburg, her intellectual circle included [[Anthony Blunt]], [[Margaret Whinney]], [[Franz Boaz]], [[Ernst Gombrich]], [[Gertrud Bing]], [[Charles Singer|Charles]] and [[Dorothea Waley Singer|Dorothea Singer]], [[D. P. Walker]], [[Fritz Saxl]], [[Eugénie Droz]], and [[Roy Strong]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=96&ndash;97}} At this time, she also developed lifelong friendships with Jan van Dorsten and [[Rosemond Tuve]], both scholars.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=97&ndash;98}}

Upon Britain's victory in the war, Yates was among a number of Warburg scholars who emphasised the need for pan-European historiography, so as to reject the [[nationalism]]s that had led to the World Wars; this approach, she believed, must be both international and interdisciplinary.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=96}} She described this new approach as "Warburgian history", defining this as the "history of culture as a whole &ndash; the history of thought, science, art, including the history of imagery and symbolism."{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=102&ndash;103}} Connected to this, she believed that school education should focus on pan-European, rather than simply British history.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=99&ndash;100}}

The Warburg Institute published Yates's third book in 1947 as ''The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century''. She described this as "an ambitious effort to apply the Warburgian modes of work, to use art, music philosophy, religion" to elucidate the subject.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=100&ndash;101}} The following year, she began to contemplate writing a book on Bruno,{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=112&ndash;113}} and spent September 1951 in Italy, visiting places that had been associated with his life.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=114}} By 1948, both Yates sisters had moved back to the family home in Claygate;{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=109}} however, in March 1951 Hannah died of [[leukemia]],{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=108}} and Yates's mother died in October 1952.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=111, 114}} Despite the problems in her personal life, she continued her scholarship, typically publishing two or three scholarly papers a year.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=112}} She also lectured on the subjects of her research at various different universities across Britain; during the 1950s she lectured on the subject of ''espérance impériale'', which would later be collected and published as ''Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century'' (1975).{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=113}}

In 1954, [[Gertrud Bing]] became Director of the Warburg, overseeing the move from [[South Kensington]] to a specially constructed building in [[Woburn Square]], [[Bloomsbury]]. Bing was a close friend of Yates, and they often went on holidays together.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=104, 108}} Yates's fourth book, published in 1959, was ''The Valois Tapestries'', in which she discussed [[Valois Tapestries|the eponymous tapestries]] in the [[Uffizi]] in [[Florence]], Italy. She offered a novel interpretation of the tapestries, approaching them as if they were "a detective story" and arguing that they were meant as portraits of the French royal family.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=116, 117}}

===International acclaim: 1961&ndash;81===
Yates's scholarly productivity increased in the 1960s and 1970s,{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=132}} when she also became a regular book reviewer for ''[[The New York Review of Books]]''.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=139}}
In 1961, Yates authored ''[[Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition]]'', which has come to be widely regarded as her masterpiece. In her diary, she wrote that she now "saw Hermeticism as the clue to Bruno and the whole view of Renaissance magic in relation to him."{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=120}} She had been encouraged to adopt this view by her friend, D.P. Walker.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=127}} The book was published in 1964 by Cambridge University Press.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=132}} The work brought her international scholarly fame, and in 1965 she went on a lecture tour of the United States.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=134&ndash;136}} Her next publication was a part-sequel to ''Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition'', being published as ''[[The Art of Memory]]'' in 1966.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=136&ndash;138}} In 1967, she was elected a [[Fellow of the British Academy]] (FBA).<ref>{{cite web|title=YATES, Dame Frances (Amelia)|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U170686|website=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=20 April 2017|date=April 2014}}</ref> In 1969 she published ''Theatre of the World''.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=136, 141}} Her next book, published by Routledge in 1972, was ''The Rosicrucian Enlightenment'', in which she looked at the influence of the [[Rosicrucian|Rosicrucian manifestos]] in 16th century Europe.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=146, 148}}

In 1971, Yates was awarded an honorary doctorate from the [[University of East Anglia]], which was presented to her by [[Angus Wilson]],{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=107, 144}} and in the New Year Honours 1972 Yates was appointed an [[Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire|Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] ''for services to Art History''.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=45554|date=31 December 1971|supp=1|page=12}}</ref>{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=143}} In October 1973, she was awarded a £5000 [[Wolfson Foundation|Wolfson Award]] for her wider oeuvre,{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=165}} and in January 1974, Yates delivered four Northcliffe lectures at [[University College London]] (UCL). They would subsequently be published by Routledge in 1975 as ''Shakespeare's Last Plays: A New Approach''.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=169&ndash;176, 178}} She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1975.<ref>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter Y|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterY.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=29 July 2014}}</ref> That same year also saw the publication of ''Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century'', which collected together lectures that she had presented in the 1950s.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=154}} In February 1976, [[Smith College]] in [[Northampton, Massachusetts]] offered Yates the Kennedy Professorship, which she declined.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=181}}

Yates was promoted in the [[1977 Birthday Honours#Dame Commander .28DBE.|Queen's Birthday Honours 1977]] to [[Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire|Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (DBE) ''for services to Renaissance studies''.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=47234|supp=1|page=7079|date=10 June 1977}}</ref>{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=186}} In 1978, the [[University of Pisa]] awarded her the Premio Galileo Galilei for her contribution to the study of Italian history.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=55}} In March 1979, the [[British Academy]] awarded her a £2000 grant so that she could continue to travel from her home to London in order to conduct research.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=198}}

In 1974, an [[academic conference]] was held at [[UCLA]]'s [[Clark Library]] in [[Los Angeles, California]], that debated and discussed what was termed the "Yates thesis".{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=193}} The last decade of her life saw her critics become both more numerous and more outspoken;{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=146}} however, she gained a champion in the form of historian [[Hugh Trevor-Roper]], who positively reviewed her works and became a personal friend.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=145}} In 1979, Yates published ''The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age'', in which she discussed the place of the [[Christian Cabala]] during the Renaissance and its influence on Christian [[Neoplatonism]]. It did not prove as successful as her books published in the 1960s.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=181, 187-89}}

It was during the early 1970s that she began writing an autobiography, inspired by [[E. M. Forster]]'s biography of [[Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson]]; it was left unfinished on her death, although portions were published posthumously.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=xxiii, 177}}
In March 1979, Yates moved her sister Ruby into a nursing home,{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=190&ndash;191}} before embarking on a lecture tour of the U.S.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=191}} Ruby died in May 1980, leaving Yates as the last surviving member of her immediate family.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=198}} In 1980 Yates was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00004003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822172416/https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00004003 |title=Frances Amelia Yates (1899 - 1981) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |archive-date=22 August 2020}}</ref> In summer 1981, Yates traveled on a lecture tour of Hungary, coming to believe that Anglophone scholarship had neglected Central Europe.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=210}} Her final lecture was delivered at [[Manchester Cathedral]], and was on the subject of [[John Dee]], whom Yates was taking an increasing research interest in.{{sfn|Jones|2008|pp=201&ndash;202}} Shortly after, she fell over at home, and was hospitalised with a cracked [[femur]].{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=217}} She recovered and returned home, where she died in her sleep.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=218}} Her body was [[cremation|cremated]] in an Anglican memorial service.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=219}}