Frederic De Forest Allen

Frederic De Forest Allen (born May 25, 1844 in Oberlin , Ohio , † August 4, 1897 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American classical philologist .

Life

Frederick De Forest Allen was the son of geologist and composer George Nelson Allen (1812–1877), who taught at Oberlin College , and his wife, Mary Rudd Allen. He studied at Western Reserve University and Oberlin College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1863 (A. B.). He then taught from 1863 to 1865 at Sewickly High School, Pennsylvania . From 1866 to 1868 he was a lecturer in Greek and Latin at East Tennessee State University . From 1868 to 1870 he went on a long study trip to Europe and studied classical philology at the University of Leipzig , where he was particularly inspired by the linguist Georg Curtius . Allen wrote his doctoral thesis with him, which made him Dr. phil. received his doctorate .

After returning to the United States, Allen continued to teach at Eastern Tennessee State University. In 1873 he went to Harvard University as a tutor and a year later (1874) as Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Cincinnati . From there he moved in 1879 as Professor of Greek at Yale University and in 1880 as Professor of Classical Philology at Harvard University. He died on August 4, 1897 as a result of a bicycle accident that he had suffered on a trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire .

Allen's research focus was the Greek language and literature, which he perfected particularly during his studies in Leipzig. He edited translations of Greek tragedies, revised the Greek Grammar ( Greek Grammar , 1886) by James Hadley and published studies on Greek verse inscriptions. He used his knowledge of ancient metrics and the musical knowledge he had acquired from his father to set the Terence comedy Phormio to music , which was performed in 1894.

Allen's latest project, an edition of Plato - Scholien was after his death by William Chase Greene completed (1938).

Fonts (selection)

• De dialecto Locrensium . Leipzig 1870 (dissertation)
• Euripides Medea . Boston 1876. Revised edition by Clifford Herschel Moore 1900
• Remnants of Early Latin . Boston 1880
• On Greek Versification in Inscriptions . In: Papers of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens . Volume 4 (1888), pp. 37-204
• Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound . Boston / London 1891

literature

• John Edwin Sandys : A Short History of Classical Scholarship from the Sixth Century B.C. to the Present Day . Cambridge 1915, p. 424
• Meyer Reinhold : Allen, Frederic De Forest . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists . Westport, CT / London: Greenwood Press 1994, ISBN 978-0-313245-60-2 , pp. 11f.

Web links

• Entry on Frederic De Forest Allen in the Database of Classical Scholars (English)
• Literature by Frederic De Forest Allen in the catalog of the German National Library