Biographical Essay

Fr. Peter A. Fiore, O.F.M., the former Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Head of the English Department, has been on the Siena College faculty for over thirty-five years. After two years in pastoral ministry for the Albany Diocese at St. Mary's Church in Glens Falls (1988-90) and six years as Director of Communications for Holy Name Province in New York (1990-96), he has returned as Scholar in Residence; on weekends he celebrates liturgy and preaches at St. Mary's Parish in Ballston Spa, N.Y.

Fr. Peter, a native of Glens Falls and a graduate of St. Mary's Academy, is a 1949 graduate of Siena College as an English Major. He is a veteran of World War II and served at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. He has been a member of the American Legion, Post 0233, for over fifty years, and is a member of the Marine Corps League, Det. #2. After graduation from Siena, he entered the Franciscan Order in 1950, took first vows in 1951, solemn vows in 1954, and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1955 in Washington D.C. at the hand of Cardinal Amleto Cigognani, then Apostolic Delegate to the United States. He took a Masters Degree in English from The Catholic University of America in 1955 and a Ph.D. from London University in 1960.

Fr. Fiore's first assignment was to his alma mater, Siena College. His fields of teaching at Siena are Milton, Seventeenth Century Literature, Short Story, Survey of English Literature, and Honors seminars on Great Books, the theology of Paradise Lost, and Dante's Divine Comedy. He has been a frequent guest lecturer and was Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in 1975. He has returned often to London University as Summer Lecturer on Donne, Hopkins, and Teacher Education programs in the United States.  His publishing career has frequently taken him to libraries in England and Italy for research.

During his years as professor of English and Head of the English Department at Siena, he headed the prestigious Greyfriar Series which brought to the campus outstanding lecturers and writers (Stephen Spender, Hal Holbrook, Brooks Atkinson, Basil Rathbone, Alfred Kazan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti to name a few) and was Editor of Greyfriar: Siena Studies in Literature, a journal which published the works of outstanding artists and scholars (Flannery O'Connor, William Kerrigan, John Shawcross, Edward LeComte, Robert Speaight, to name a few).

Fr. Fiore, a member of the Milton Seminar, is one of some twenty-five Miltonists participating in bi-annual meetings to study and evaluate Milton research and scholarship. He holds membership in a number of professional organizations, among them the Milton Society of America, the Modern Language Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the College English Association, and the National Collegiate Honors Association. He is listed in a number of biographical directories, including Who's Who in America, Directory of  American Scholars, Dictionary of International Biography, American Authors Today,  Contemporary Authors, The World's Who's Who of Authors.   He has been the recipient of a Glens Falls Foundation grant and  twice recipient of  British Museum grants for research.

His publications include five books and many articles in literary and scholarly journals. His books Th'Upright Heart and Pure (a collection of essays on Milton by various hands) was published by Duquesne University Press, 1967; Just So Much Honor (a collection of essays on Donne) was published by Penn State University Press, 1972; his book on Milton's theology in Paradise Lost, Milton and Augustine, was published by Penn State University Press, 1982. Personal Journeys: Classic Writers for a New Century (a collection of essays on Dante, Donne, Milton, Hopkins, Waugh, and Flannery O'Connor) was published in April 2001. His latest book, More Personal Journeys (a collection of essays on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Augustine, Newman, Chesterton, and Graham Greene) was published in April 2005.

His articles have appeared in the Huntington Library Quarterly ("Milton and the Incarnation," 1975), Milton Quarterly ("Milton and the state of perfection in Paradise Lost," 1971), Renascence ("Hopkins and the Franciscans," 1973), Milton Encyclopedia (essays on Milton and Ambrose, Anselm, Aquinas, Augustine, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Josephus, 1981), Franciscan Studies ("Milton and Soteriology," 1959),  The CEA Critic ("Milton and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange," 1973), Wascana Review ("The Nativity theme in minor 17th century devotional verse," 1981), A Christian Approach to Western Literature ("Milton and Satan in Paradise Lost," 1961), Duquesne Review ("Milton and the Fall of Angels," 1966). His essay on colleague, baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, has been reprinted in several publications.

In the Fall of 2010, Professor Fiore's sixth book was published; the title is The Gospels Are Now (Timeless Gospel Themes and Life. Literature, and the Arts)

His hobbies: opera, theater, film, and the Yankees.