Robert Kay Gordon was an English scholar of medieval and early modern English literature and administrator at the University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

 in Canada.

In 1913, having graduated from the Universities

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 of Toronto and Oxford, Gordon became administrator at the University of Alberta. In 1936 he was appointed as head of the Department of English and became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada the same year. Between 1943 and 1945, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science. He retired from the university in 1950. His colleagues included F. M. Salter, E. Sonet and D. E. Cameron.

Selected works

Dr. Gordon published widely in his field of English literature, displaying a wide range of interest, from Old English poetry and Chaucer to the Scottish novelists Sir Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

 and John Galt.

• 1918 (ed. with E. K. Broadus). English Prose from Bacon to Hardy. London. Anthology, available from the Internet Archive
• 1920. John Galt. Toronto. Available from the Internet Archive
• 1922. The Song of Beowulf
  Beowulf
  Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
  
  . Translation into English prose. New York.
• 1925. Scott's
  Walter Scott
  Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
  
   "Tales of a Grandfather". New York: Dutton.
• 1926. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London and New York. Translations of selected Old English poems. Gordon's translation of The Seafarer available online.
• 1964 (ed.). The Story of Troilus
  Troilus
  Troilus is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War...
  
  : as told by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Henryson. New York: Dutton. Versions of the Troilus legend by Benoît de Sainte-Maure
  Benoît de Sainte-Maure
  Benoît de Sainte-Maure was a 12th century French poet, most probably from Sainte-Maure de Touraine near Tours, France. The Plantagenets' administrative center was located in Chinon - west of Tours....
  
  , Giovanni Boccaccio
  Giovanni Boccaccio
  Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
  
  , Geoffrey Chaucer
  Geoffrey Chaucer
  Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
  
   and Robert Henryson
  Robert Henryson
  Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities...
  
  .