Professor R. Allen Shoaf holds the BA degree from Wake Forest University, where, in 1970, he was selected the first Marshall Scholar in the university's history. After studying in England, he returned to the US and enrolled in Cornell in 1972 as a Danforth Fellow where he studied with Robert Kaske and Giuseppe Mazzotta, gradually pursuing interests that would lead to his first book, Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word.

After a brief period at Yale, he was appointed Professor of English in the University of Florida in 1985 and Alumni Professor in 1990.

In the 1980s he continued his concentration on Dante and Chaucer and other Middle English writers as well, producing a teaching edition of Troilus and Criseyde and a monograph on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. During this time he also continued his study of Milton and Shakespeare, begun in his youth, and now part of his intellectual life for more than 40 years.

In 1985, he published Milton, Poet of Duality, and in 2003, he finished the draft of his book, Shakespeare’s Theater of Likeness, which has occupied his otherwise available time for nearly 25 years; he hopes to see the book into print over the next two to three years.

In 1989, with the late Julian Noa Wasserman, the Publisher Mario A. DiCesare, and his wife, Judy Shoaf, he founded Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, which is now entering its 17th year of continuous publication and 10th year of presence on the World Wide Web.

In 27 years as an academic, he has been fortunate to enjoy four years of research leave, twice as a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. During this time, he has studied, and occasionally taught, in England, France, Italy, and Switzerland.

In November he will travel to Geneva where he will serve as an extramural member of the Appointments Committee for the Chair of Medieval Literature in the Department of English in the University of Geneva.

Author or editor of 10 books, 40 articles, and 41 reviews, he also finds time to write poetry and pet his Welsh Corgis.