Peter Milward
Jesuit literary scholar (1925-2017)

Father Peter Milward, SJ (12 October 1925 – 16 August 2017) was a Jesuit priest and literary scholar. He was emeritus professor of English Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo and a leading figure in scholarship on English Renaissance literature. He was chair of the Renaissance Institute at Sophia University from its inception in 1974 until it was closed down in 2014 and director of the Renaissance Centre from its start in 1984 until it was closed down in 2002. He primarily published on the works of William Shakespeare and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Life
Education
Born in London in 1925, Milward was educated at Wimbledon College, entering the Society of Jesus in 1943 at the age of 18. He went on to study Classics and English Literature in Heythrop College and Campion Hall, Oxford. In Oxford he made a point of attending the lectures of C. S. Lewis and the meetings of the Socratic Club. In 1954 he was sent to Japan, where he learnt the Japanese language and completed his study of Theology. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1960.
Academic career
Milward joined the Department of English Literature at Sophia University in 1962.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Peter Milward” as jesuit literary scholar (1925-2017). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3038353. VIAF identifies the subject as 100204401. The Library of Congress control number is n50033368. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2017, 1974 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peter Milward” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.