Don Paul Fowler

Don Paul Fowler (born May 21, 1953 in Birmingham , † October 15, 1999 in Oxford ) was an English classical philologist .

Life

Fowler came from a humble background in Birmingham and attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for boys there. After studying at Christ Church College , Oxford, Fowler was first Lecturer in Classics at Magdalen College (1976–1977) and then Dyson Junior Research Fellow in Greek Culture at Balliol College (1978–1980). At the age of 28 he was made a Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College and also held the position of University Lecturer in Greek and Latin Literature at Oxford University (1981-1999). Fowler made numerous contacts with classical scholars in North America and Europe. He spoke Italian so well that he was able to speak freely in this language in front of an audience. In this way he became an important mediator between Italian and British Latin studies in the 1980s. In particular , he was closely connected to Gian Biagio Conte and Alessandro Barchiesi and the Italian trade journal Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici . Fowler was also a member of the editorial boards of other journals (including Journal of Roman Studies and Arachnion ).

Fowler was married to the classical scholar Peta Fowler (nee Moon) since 1977 and has a daughter Sophia.

plant

Although Fowler did not leave a monograph on his untimely death, his intellectual activity and originality made him one of the outstanding Latinists of his generation. He was one of the pioneers in the application of modern literary theory and information technology in classical philology. His specialty in Latin literature was Roman Epicureanism , the work of Lucretius and Virgil , topics on which Fowler, like others, wrote numerous essays and contributions. A book on Lucretius has just been published, as has the long-awaited “Buch zum Buch” with the provisional title Unrolling the Text: books and readers in classical Latin poetry , which deals with the history of the scroll in antiquity and its role in ancient poetry should deal. However, a partial commentary on the second book of Lucretius was edited by his wife. In addition, from 1986 to 1993 Fowler wrote the Subject Reviews in Latin Literature in the specialist journal Greece and Rome and, together with his wife Peta, was responsible for the area of ​​Latin literature in the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (see in particular the entries Lucretius , Virgil and Literary Theory and the Classics ). In literary theory, he has especially for irony , for focalization , the circuit (Engl. Closure ) and intertextuality worked.

Publications (selection)

comment

• Lucretius on atomic motion. A commentary on De rerum natura book two, lines 1-332. Edited by Peta Fowler, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002. ISBN 0-19-924358-1

Editorships

• (Ed., With Efrossini Spentzou): Cultivating the Muse: Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical Literature . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-924004-3 .
• (Eds., With DH Roberts and FM Dunn): Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature . Princeton 1997. ISBN 0-691-04452-X . Review by: Marilyn B. Skinner, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review , online

Collection of articles

• Roman constructions. Readings in postmodern Latin . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-815309-0 .

Essays

• The Didactic Plot , in: Matrices of genre. Authors, canons, and society. Edited Dirk Obbink and Mary Depew ( Center for Hellenic Studies , colloquia, 4). Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA a. a. 2000, ISBN 0-674-00338-1 .
• Epic in the Middle of the Wood: Mise en Abyme in the Nisus and Euryalus Episode , in: Intratextuality. Greek and Roman Textual Relations . Edited by Alison Sharrock and Helen Morales. Oxford 2000, 89-113.
• From Epos to Cosmos: Lucretius, Ovid, and the Poetics of Segmentation , in: Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday . Edited by Doreen Innes, Harry Hine and Christopher Pelling. Oxford 1995, 3-18.
• Deviant focalization in Vergil's Aeneid , in: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 36 (1990) 42-63.
• Lucretius and Politics . In: Philosophia Togata. Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society . Edited by Miriam Griffin and Jonathan Barnes . Oxford 1989, 120-150.
• First Thoughts on Closure: Problems and Prospects , in: Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 22 (2011) 75–122.

Others

• Titus Lucretius Carus, On the nature of the universe . Translated by Sir Ronald Melville, introduction by Don and Peta Fowler. Oxford University Press, New York 1999.
• Gian Biagio Conte : Latin Literature: A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow, revised by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most . Johns Hopkins University Press , Baltimore / London 1994 (Review: Peter Davis, Scholia Reviews ns 5 (1996) 3 )

literature

• SJ Heyworth, PG Fowler, SJ Harrison : Classical constructions: papers in memory of Don Fowler, classicist and epicurean . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2007.
• Obituary. In: Gnomon 73, 2001

Web links

• Denis Feeney : Obituary: Don Fowler . In: The Independent , November 1, 1999
• Alison Sharrock : Don Fowler . In: The Guardian , Saturday November 27, 1999
• Marilyn Deegan: Obituary Don Paul Fowler 1953–1999 (PDF; 131 kB) In: Computers & Texts No. 18/19, Spring 2000, p. 39