Mary Paton Ramsay (25 October 1885 – 5 July 1946) was a Scottish academic. In 1919, she was the winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for her book Les Doctrines Medievales Chez Donne, which argued for the influence of medieval mysticism on the poetry of John Donne.[1]
During the First World War, she did clerical work, spent two years working with munitions (TNT) in Edinburgh 1915–1917, and worked as an administrator in France for the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, 1917–1919.[5][2]
In 1919, Ramsay was a lecturer in history and sociology at the American College for WomenatConstantinople[5] when she won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for her book Les Doctrines Medievales Chez Donne (French),[6] which was based on her doctoral thesis.[1] She argued in the book for the influence of medieval mysticism on Donne's work, although not of an extreme kind; Michael Martin sees this view as part of a trend in early twentieth-century literary criticism that derives from Evelyn Underhill's book Mysticism (1911).[7] Ramsay's thesis was not universally accepted and several contemporary and later scholars have attempted to rebut it, including Mario Praz, T.S. Eliot,[8] and George Williamson (1898–1968).[9]
Ramsay's later works were on Scottish topics, including a discussion of John Calvin's attitude to art as it relates to Scotland and works on Scottish patriotism and song.[10]
Les Doctrines Medievales Chez Donne, le poète métaphysicien de l'Angleterre (1573–1631). Humphrey Milford, London, 1917. (2nd, Oxford University Press, 1924)
Calvin and Art, Considered in Relation to Scotland. Moray Press, Edinburgh & London, 1938.
The Freedom of the Scots from Early Times Till its Eclipse in 1707: Displayed in Statements of our Forefathers Who Loved and Served Scotland. Edinburgh, 1945.
Popular Variants of Auld Scots Sangs. Kilmarnock, 1946. (Editor)
