Oscar Kuhns

Oscar Kuhns taught Romance languages at an American university and introduced broad audiences to European literature through lectures and books. The Love Of Books And Reading, published by Henry Holt in 1910, reflects on reading as education, companionship, and contact with earlier minds, drawing examples from classical and modern writers. Studies in the Poetry of Italy Part II condenses the fuller title Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part II: Italian. Kuhns traces Italian literature from its origins through Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, the Renaissance, and later revivals, combining historical outline with translated examples. The Italian section originally formed the second part of a Chautauqua reading course paired with Frank Justus Miller’s volume on Roman poetry; a third edition followed in 1913. Kuhns taught at Wesleyan University and wrote other studies of Dante, German culture, and Pennsylvania history. These two books share his educational purpose but differ in scope: one considers the practice of reading, while the other offers a chronological literary history.