B.A., New York University, 1947; M.A., Columbia University, 1948; Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1951. Visiting Associate Professor of English, Caltech, 1961-62; Associate Professor, 1962-68; Professor, 1968-80; Professor of Literature, 1980-2003; Professor Emeritus, 2003-.
Oscar Mandel was born in Flemish Antwerp into a German-speaking Jewish-Polish family and educated in French schools until the Nazis invaded Belgium in May 1940. The family wound up in New York, where the 14-year-old Mandel learned English and made it his dominant language.
For half a century he taught English and comparative literature at Caltech. He is now retired and living mostly in Los Angeles and partly in Paris.
Mandel's publications list shows him to be a poet, a story-teller, a playwright, and an essayist – all this on the creative side. What might be called semi-creative activities are his translations – mostly from French, but also from German, Italian (the Don Giovanni of Lorenzo da Ponte), and Spanish. Then there are the more professional publications like his works on tragedy, poetry, and mythical figures like Philoctetes and Don Juan. Finally, two excursions into art history may be noted, one of them a study of the Genovese master Alessandro Magnasco, published by Leo S. Olschki in Firenze.
Research Summary
Aesthetics; Drama; Art History
Selected Publications
In chronological order:
1961: A Definition of Tragedy
1963: The Theatre of Don Juan: a Collection of Plays and Views 1630-1963
1964: Chi Po and the Sorcerer: a Chinese Tale for Children and Philosophers
1967: The Fatal French Dentist [comedy]
1967: The Gobble-Up Stories [fables]
1968: Seven Comedies by Marivaux
1970: Five Comedies of Medieval France
1970-1972: The Collected Plays (2 volumes)
1971: Three Classic Don Juan Plays
1974: Simplicities [poems]
1976: The Patriots of Nantucket: a Romantic Comedy of the American Revolution
1976: Amphitryon [comedy]
1978: The Land of Upside Down by Ludwig Tieck [comedy]
1981: Annotations to ‘Vanity Fair'
1981: Collected Lyrics and Epigrams
1981: Philoctetes and the Fall of Troy: Plays, Documents, Iconography, Interpretations
1982: Ariadne by Thomas Corneille, with: Ariadne and Neo-Classical French Tragedy
1985: The Book of Elaborations [essays]
1987: The Kukkurrik Fables: 43 Mini-Plays for All Media
1988: Annotations to ‘Vanity Fair', second edition, in collaboration with John Sutherland
1990: August von Kotzebue: the Comedy, The Man
1993: The Virgin and the Unicorn: Four Plays
1994: The Art of Alessandro Magnasco: an Essay in the Recovery of Meaning
1996. The Cheerfulness of Dutch Art: a Rescue Operation
1996: Two Romantic Comedies: The Spaniards in Denmark (Prosper Mérimée) and The Rebels of Nantucket
1997: Fundamentals of the Art of Poetry
2002: Reinventions: Four Plays After Homer, Cervantes, Calderón and Marivaux
2002: L'Arc de Philoctète [drama]
2003: Prosper Mérimée: Plays on Hispanic Themes
2003: Amphitryon, ou le Cocu béni [comedy]
2003: Le Triomphe d'Agamemnon [drama]
2004: Chi Po et le Sorcier [fiction]
2006: Where Is the Light? Poems 1955-2005
2007: La Reine de Patagonie et son caniche [fables]
2010: Cette guêpe me regarde de travers [poems in French and English]
2013: Théâtre dansun fauteuil: huit comédies et drames
2013: Etre ou ne pas être juif [essay]
2014: Otherwise Fables: Gobble-Up Stories (revised and augmented edition), Chi Po and the Sorcerer (revised edition), and The History of Sigismund, Prince of Poland
2015: Otherwise Poems
2019: Last Pages
2022: A Visit to The Merchant of Venice [article in the Fortnightly Review, London]
