Rolland Hein taught courses on contemporary British and American literature at Wheaton College and was an expert on 19th-century Scottish author and fantasy literature pioneer George MacDonald.

Hein shared his love of literature with students both in the classroom and at the college’s Marion E. Wade Center, a research archive devoted to seven British authors, including MacDonald, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

“Rolland Hein was in love with the beauty of nature and the beauty of language. He was vastly loved by his students and achieved renown for his work on George MacDonald, but he also loved and taught everything — the Romantic poets, the works of the Inklings, modern American literature and Irish literature,” said retired Wheaton College English professor Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner.

Hein, 90, died of complications from pancreatic cancer on March 10 at his home at the Covenant Living Windsor Park assisted living facility in Carol Stream, said his daughter, Christine Mackey.

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Hein grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa and received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Wheaton College in 1954.

Hein was greatly influenced by one of his professors, Clyde S. Kilby, who introduced Hein to the writings of authors Lewis and MacDonald. A little more than a decade later, Kilby, who frequently corresponded with Lewis, founded the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton, which started correspondence between Kilby and Lewis.

Hein initially was drawn to a life in ministry. After college, he earned a bachelor’s degree of divinity from Grace Theological Seminary in Indiana in 1957 and then taught English at the seminary’s sister institution, Grace College. After two years of teaching at Grace, he left to become a pastor at Grace Brethren Church in Flora, Indiana.

The classroom remained a powerful draw for Hein. He continued studying MacDonald’s writings and earned a master’s degree in English from Purdue University in 1962, and after that, he moved with his family to Minnesota, where he taught English literature at Bethel College in St. Paul and took courses at the University of Minnesota. He earned his doctorate in 1971 from Purdue, writing his dissertation on MacDonald’s novels.

In 1970, Hein joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught popular English literature courses. He also continued studying MacDonald’s works.

“Rolland … found beauty and inspiration in the written word of modern literature,” said retired Wheaton College history professor Chuck Weber.

While on a 2017 panel at the Wade Center, Hein characterized MacDonald as a “master myth-maker” and asserted that the myths found in fantasy writing ultimately can lead readers to certain eternal truths.

“We’re talking about an imaginative experience, something that’s quite beyond the reach of the purely rational mind to grasp,” Hein told the audience. “Myth to me has a certain aura that inevitably surrounds truth, eternal truth, which is imaginatively confronted, imaginatively glimpsed in story, in fantasy particularly.

“Many of you have read some of the fantasies of MacDonald or Lewis and can recall moments in which there was a flash of insight. You can’t articulate it, but it’s something glimpsed beyond the ability of the mind to articulate — that’s myth.”

Hein led Wheaton College’s summer program in England on several occasions, and Baumgaertner noted that Hein expanded the program to include Ireland.

“He would always be sure to arrive in Dublin on Bloomsday — June 16 — so that he could lead the students on the famous journey the main character takes around Dublin in (James) Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’” she said.

In a March 26 Substack post, veteran religion journalist Cathleen Falsani, who graduated from Wheaton College in 1992, called Hein her favorite professor and noted his influence on her ability to appreciate poetry.

“I remember listening to Dr. Hein read or recite a poem and truly ‘getting’ it for the first time,” Falsani wrote. “He taught me literally how to read poetry that wasn’t written in rhyming couplets. He showed me how to feel my way through the text, to breathe with the punctuation, to let the words roll through my consciousness like bits of sea glass.”

Among the books that Hein wrote were “The Harmony Within: The Spiritual Vision of George MacDonald,” which was published in 1978, “Christian Mythmakers,” which was published in 1998, and “The Heart of George MacDonald,” which was published in 2000.

After retiring from Wheaton in 1997, Hein taught adult literature courses at the Wade Center, at Christ Church Oak Brook and at his retirement community.

From 1996 until 2014, he and his wife owned a house on a large parcel in St. Charles, where he had built elaborate gardens with waterfalls, grape arbors, fruit trees and koi ponds.

In 2014, Hein wrote a book that combined two of his passions — poetry and gardening — in his book “Growing with my Garden: Thoughts on Tending the Soil and the Soul.”

In addition to his daughter, Hein is survived by his wife of 67 years, Dorothy; a son, Steven; and three granddaughters.

Services were held.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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