Harold Toliver

Harold Toliver was an active participant in the well-known School of Criticism and Theory which was founded by a group of leading scholars and critical theorists in 1976. He worked together with such outstanding scholars as Murray Krieger, J. Hillis Miller and Geoffrey Wolff.

Harold Toliver is an American literary critic, theorist and writer. Currently, he is professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in the areas of Renaissance and seventeenth-century literature, English and Comparative Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism. He received Guggenheim awards (1964, 1976) and the Distinguished Research Award (1982). Toliver is married and has two children.

Harold Earl Toliver was born on February 16, 1932 in McMinnville, Oregon, United States. He is the son of a Yamhill County farmers Marion E. Toliver and Mable A. (Mallery) Toliver. He served in the United States Army, Private first class, 1954–1956. Toliver graduated from University of Oregon, (Bachelor of Arts, 1954) and Johns Hopkins University (Master of Arts, 1958). He earned his doctorate at the University of Washington in 1961. From 1961 to 1964, Toliver taught at Ohio State University. He was a professor of English at UCLA (1965–1966), and then a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught for thirty years.