Günther Zuntz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Günther Zuntz (born January 28, 1902 in Berlin ; † April 3, 1992 in Cambridge ) was an English classical philologist of German origin.

Live and act

Günther Zuntz, who came from the enlightened Jewish upper class on his father's side and a Protestant family on his mother's side, was the son of Leo Zuntz (1875–1937) and a grandson of the physiologist Nathan Zuntz . He spent his childhood and youth in Berlin. After graduating from high school, he studied classical philology and archeology in Berlin, Marburg, Göttingen and Graz . From 1924 to 1926 he worked as a teacher at the Hessian Odenwald School, later in Marburg and Kassel. In 1927 he received his doctorate with a thesis “About Hölderlin's Pindar Translation”. In 1933 he was dismissed from school by the National Socialists for racist reasons. Through the mediation of Wilhelm Schubart , the head of the Berlin papyrus collection , he got a job at the University of Copenhagen , where he worked on the publication of liturgical papyrus texts for the Greek Orthodox Church . In 1939 he decided to emigrate to England, encouraged by academic contacts at Oxford University . But at the beginning of the war he was interned on the Isle of Man . After his release he was given a position as a librarian in Oxford in 1943. After the end of the war he worked as a lecturer in the Greek language at the University of Manchester , where he finally held a professorship for Hellenistic Greek from 1963 to 1969. In the years 1948 to 1955 he developed his famous textbook Greek Course here . However, the English version was initially not published. At the invitation of the University of Tübingen , he was able to compile a German version, which was published in 1983. Since 1956 he was a member ( fellow ) of the British Academy .

Günther Zuntz was married twice. His marriage to Eva Leonore Hempel, from whom the children Peter, Maleen and Gabriele came, ended in divorce in 1945 after twenty years. In 1947 he married Mary Alyson Garratt. The couple had children Carsten, Andrew and Alyson.

Fonts (selection)

  • A bibliography can be found in Opuscula selecta (1972, 314–317), additions to this in the obituaries mentioned below.
  • About Hölderlin's Pindar translation. Kassel: Thiele & Schwarz 1928
  • Prophetology. Vol. 1, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1939
  • Humanism and history in German education, in: The Congregational quarterly 24/1946: 110–123
  • The text of the Epistles. A disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum. Oxford: University Press 1953
  • Persephone. Three essays on religion and thought in Magna Graecia. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971
  • Opuscula selecta. Classica, Hellenistica, Christiana. Manchester: Univ. Press 1972
  • Three chapters on Greek metrics. Vienna: Austrian AdW 1974
  • Greek course . 3 volumes, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1983 (2nd, revised edition 1991)
    • English language edition: Greek. A course in classical and post-classical Greek grammar from original texts. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994
  • Lucian of Antioch and the text of the Gospels. Edited by Barbara Aland and Klaus Wachtel. With an obituary for the author by Martin Hengel. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Phil.-hist. Class 1995, 2, Heidelberg: Winter 1995
  • Greek philosophical hymns. Tübingen: Mohr 2005

literature

  • Martin Hengel : Günther Zuntz , in: Proceedings of the British Academy 87, 1995, 493-522 (in English); in German: Günther Zuntz, in: Lukian von Antiochien and the text of the Gospels. Edited by Barbara Aland and Klaus Wachtel. With an obituary for the author by Martin Hengel. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Phil.-hist. Kl. 1995, 2, Heidelberg: Winter 1995, 63-88; Reprinted in: ders., Theological, historical and biographical sketches . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010 (= ders., Kleine Schriften VII), 499-526
  • Utz Maas : Zuntz, Günther , in: ders., Persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933–1945 (Volume 1: Documentation. Introduction and biobibliographical data A – Z ; Volume 2: Evaluations. Persecution - Emigration - Specialized History - Consequences ). Stauffenburg Verlag, 2010; Revised in: ders., Zuntz, Günther , in: ders., Persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933–1945. Revised with the help of Petra Hödl (revised version of the print edition in the online edition)
  • Hans Schwabl : Günther Zuntz , in: Almanach of the Austrian Academy of Sciences 143, 1992, 437–443.
  • Klaus-Gunther WesselingZuntz, Günther. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 35, Bautz, Nordhausen 2014, ISBN 978-3-88309-882-1 , Sp. 1569–1593.

Web links