Editing Frances Yates (section)

===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}}
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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}}