The Boston Globe

Obituaries

Boston.com

Dorrit Cohn, 87; among Harvard’s first tenured female professors

By Bryan Marquard

 |  Globe Staff  

  March 20, 2012

A student of physics before turning to literature, Dorrit Cohn cast an almost clinical eye on the sometimes murky world of sentences and stories. Teaching at Harvard University, she “had a kind of rigor that we associate with science, a kind of mathematical precision to her work,’’ said Maria Tatar, a professor of Germanic languages and literature at Harvard. “She just had an exquisite literary sensibility and was able to see things in text that no one had discovered before. She understood the wizardry of words.’’

Stay with the story. Get full access to BostonGlobe.com for just 99¢

Unlimited access to BostonGlobe.com for only 99¢ for the first 4 weeks. You can cancel at any time.

  • The FULL story all day: Enjoy all of the high-quality, in-depth journalism in the print edition of the Boston Globe — plus breaking news that's updated 24/7.
  • A truly reader-friendly format: It's online news that looks and reads just like the newspaper — uncluttered, uninterrupted.
  • Breakthrough technology: The responsive design automatically adapts content so it always reads perfectly on the digital device of your choice.
Get started today

Free access for home delivery subscribers.

Just need to link your home delivery account; one easy step.

Link my home delivery account

BostonGlobe.comSubscriber Log In

Contact us for help