Robert Kay Gordon (1887–1973) was an English scholar of medieval and early modern English literature and administrator at theUniversity of Alberta in Canada.

In 1913, having graduated from the Universities ofUniversity of Toronto andOxford, Gordon became administrator at the University of Alberta. In 1936 he was appointed as head of the Department of English and became a fellow of theRoyal Society of Canada the same year. Between 1943 and 1945, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science. He retired from the university in 1950. His colleagues included F. M. Salter, E. Sonet and D. E. Cameron.

Gordon is quoted extensively inThe Book of Imaginary Beings byJorge Luis Borges. In the entry describing the Fastitocalon, Borges includes an extended quote from R.K. Gordon's Anglo Saxon Bestiary.^[1][2]

Gordon published widely in his field of English literature, displaying a wide range of interest, from Old English poetry andChaucer to the Scottish novelists SirWalter Scott andJohn Galt.

• 1918 (ed. with E. K. Broadus).English Prose from Bacon to Hardy. London. Anthology,available from the Internet Archive
• 1920.John Galt. Toronto.Available from the Internet Archive
• 1922.The Song ofBeowulf. Translation into English prose. New York.Available from the Internet Archive
• 1925.Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather". New York: Dutton.
• 1926.Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London and New York. Translations of selected Old English poems.Gordon's translation ofThe Seafarer available online.
• 1964 (ed.).The Story ofTroilus: as told by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Henryson. New York: Dutton. Versions of the Troilus legend byBenoît de Sainte-Maure,Giovanni Boccaccio,Geoffrey Chaucer andRobert Henryson.

• Biography, University of Alberta
• Notes by F.M. Salter (1950)

• Canadian academics of English literature
• Anglo-Saxon studies scholars
• University of Alberta alumni
• Translators from Old English
• Alumni of the University of Oxford
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
• 1887 births
• 1973 deaths
• 20th-century British translators