Sunday, March 25, 2018

 

A Slap at Some Professors of Greek

R.D. Dawe, review of J.C. Kamerbeek, commentaries on The Plays of Sophocles, Part V: The Electra (Leiden: Brill, 1974), in Gnomon 48.3 (May, 1976) 228-234 (at 234):
And if someone may say so who comes from a country where Chairs of Greek are normally held by philosophers, historians, students of Hittite, latinists, anthropologists, numismatists, but only in rare instances by those content to maintain an uncontaminated interest in Greek language and literature for its own sake, it is a pleasure to review a book by a man who has persisted through severe ill health in his devotion to the study of this great author.
I can't identify most of the professors of Greek criticized by Dawe, except that "students of Hittite" may refer to M.L. West and "anthropologists" to E.R. Dodds. Sutor ne ultra crepidam.



From Eric Thomson:
I wonder if the Hittite specialist impostor alluded to wasn't Ronald Crossland?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-ronald-crossland-6102099.html

The philosopher may have been the Plotinus expert A.H. Armstrong and the Latinist D.R. Shackleton Bailey who before becoming Pope professor in 1982 occupied a chair in Greek and Latin. Ancient historian N.G.L. Hammond was Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek at Bristol until 1973.
From David Whitehead:
Possibilities for the philosopher: A.H. Armstrong (Liverpool), G.B. Kerferd (Manchester).



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