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The Guardian has published an obituary of Richard Helgerson, one of the world’s leading authorities on Renaissance literature and culture. Helgerson died on April 26, 2008 at the age of 67 following a long battle with of pancreatic cancer. 
Helgerson was a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he had taught since 1970. He was the author of six books and was best known for his studies of the ways in which the earliest European nation states described themselves to themselves and to the world.
His first book, “The Elizabethan Prodigals,” examined the works of neglected Elizabethan writers such as George Gascoigne, John Lyly, Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge. He also studied the careers of the major English writers Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson and John Milton in his book “Self-Crowned Laureates.” His best know book was “Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England” in which he showed how the need to define national identity shaped the work of prominent 16th century English writers including Shakespeare. Later in his career, Helgerson wrote “Adulterous Alliances” which studied the conception of domestic space in Shakespeare’s plays and the paintings or Vermeer.
Helgerson is survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Marie-Christine Helgerson, who is well-known in France as the author of novels for children; their daughter and two grandchildren.
Web Resources:
Guardian obituary - Richard Helgerson, Renaissance scholar with insights to offer on English identity
UCSB obituary - Richard Helgerson, Renowned Scholar of Renaissance Literature, Dies in Santa Barbara