PATTERSON, DAVID

PATTERSON, DAVID (1922– ), English scholar. Patterson, who was born in Liverpool, was appointed lecturer in post-Biblical Hebrew at the University of Oxford in 1956. He has also taught Hebrew literature at Cornell University, New York. He served as general editor of the Modern Hebrew Literature series, published by the Cornell University Press and the East and West Library. Probably his most important role was as the founder and first president (1972–94) of the Oxford Center for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies. A fellow of both the American Jewish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of Humanities, Cornell University since 1983, he was awarded the National Brotherhood Award of the Conference of Christians and Jews in the U.S. in 1978. Patterson received the Stiller Prize in Jewish literature. As literary historian, Patterson applied modern critical theories and standards to the major and minor Hebrew novels, short stories, and dramas of the early phases of modern Hebrew belles lettres. His primary interest was with the intrinsic aesthetic qualities of these compositions. His translation of moshe shamir 's novel Melekh Basar va-Dam, published as King of Flesh and Blood (1958), and the English renditions that illustrate and substantiate his conclusions in his Abraham Mapu, Creator of the Modern Hebrew Novel (1964) and Hebrew Novel in Czarist Russia (1964), convey the subtleties and flavor of the originals. A collection   of his articles on Hebrew literature, A Phoenix in Fetters, appeared in 1989. (Avraham Holtz / Rohan Saxena)