James Anderson Winn, "whose scholarly writings on Queen Anne, John Dryden and other subjects showed the influence of his side interest as a professional-caliber flutist," died March 21, the New York Times reported. He was 71. Winn also wrote about Alexander Pope's letters and the poetry of war, as well as essays on Bach and on the Beatles.
His books include John Dryden and His World (1987), Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts (2014), The Poetry of War (2008), The Pale of Words (1998), and A Window in the Bosom (1977).
"James was always from the beginning interested in interdisciplinary things," said Robert Freeman, former director of the Eastman School of Music, who advised Winn when he was a student at Princeton. "He believed that the academic world tends to isolate itself into a bunch of silos."
In a 1988 interview with the Times, Winn discussed how being raised in the South, with its rich history, had influenced him: "We grew up with a very large sense of the past. What I found attractive about the age of Dryden and Pope at the time I fell in love with it was that it seemed to me old and fine, elegant and polished, complex in ways that I didn't then understand--and don't now."