George Pierce Baker

George Pierce Baker (April 4, 1866 – January 6, 1935) was a professor of English at Harvard and Yale and author of Dramatic Technique, a codification of the principles of drama.

Biography

Baker graduated in the Harvard College class of 1887, served as Editor-in-Chief of The Harvard Monthly, and taught in the English Department at Harvard from 1888 until 1924. He started his "47 workshop" class in playwriting in 1905. He was instrumental in creating the Harvard Theatre Collection at Harvard University Library. In 1908 he began the Harvard Dramatic Club, acting as its sponsor, and in 1912 he founded the 47 Workshop to provide a forum for the performance of plays developed within his English class. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914. Unable to persuade Harvard to offer a degree in playwriting, he moved to Yale University in 1925, where he helped found the Yale School of Drama. He remained there until his retirement in 1933.

Baker was Hyde lecturer and taught a seminar on Shakespeare and English drama at the Sorbonne University (Paris) in 1907-08. He lectured at other French universities and gave several series of lectures at Lowell Institute. He has edited books on drama and written several himself, including Shakespeare's Development as a Dramatist (1907). His Dramatic Technique (1919) offered a codification in English of the principles of the well-made play.

George Pierce Baker was the father of George P. Baker who was dean of Harvard Business School.