Dr. Bernard Jay Paris, age 88 of Gainesville, FL, formerly of Baltimore, MD, Bethlehem, PA, and East Lansing MI, passed away on Thursday, November 7, 2019. Dr. Paris was born on August 19, 1931 in Baltimore MD to Albert and Anna Richman Paris.
Dr. Paris received his PhD from The Johns Hopkins University in 1959, taught in the English department at Lehigh University for four years and was a professor of English at Michigan State University for twenty-one years and at the University of Florida for fifteen years. He retired in 1996. His primary areas of interest were Victorian and comparative fiction, the psychological study of literature, Shakespeare, and the life and work of Karen Horney. In addition, he received NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships, was a Visiting Professor at the Victorian Studies Centre of the University of Leicester, was a director of the Institute for Psychological Study of the Arts at the University of Florida and was founder and director of the International Karen Horney Society. Dr. Paris wrote or edited sixteen books, including Experiments in Life: George Eliot’s Quest for Values (1965), A Psychological Approach to Fiction (1974), Bargains with Fate: Psychological Crises and Conflicts in Shakespeare and His Plays (1991), and Karen Horney: A Psychoanalyst’s Search for Self-Understanding (1994). The latter was selected as a Notable Book for 1994 by The New York Times and has since been translated into German and Chinese. Dr. Paris was also a devoted, caring, and loving husband and father who was deeply loved in return. He was a man who embodied in himself and in his life the humanistic values that informed his work and understanding of literature. He will be missed terribly.
He was preceded in death by his parents and his younger sister Hinda. He is survived by his loving wife of 70 years, Shirley Freedman Paris, daughter Shoshana Paris, son Mark Paris and Mark’s husband, Franz Epting.
Burial will take place at 2:00 p.m. Friday November 22, 2019 at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery. For those who wish, contributions can be made to the World Wildlife Fund or the Sierra Club. Arrangements are in the care of MILAM FUNERAL AND CREMATION SERVICES, 311 S. Main Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, (352) 376-5361, www.milamfh.com
