James Diggle

James Diggle (born March 29, 1944 in Rochdale ) is a British classical philologist .

Life

James Diggle studied Classical Philology at Cambridge University , where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1965 and his Master's in 1966 . A formative academic teacher was Sir Denys Lionel Page , who inspired him to study the Greek poets. Diggle was a fellow at Queens' College (Cambridge) from 1966 , where he worked in various functions: from 1969 to 1977 as a librarian, from 1970 to 1975 as assistant lecturer, from 1971 to 1973 and from 1978 praelector, from 1982 to 1993 University Orator , Reader in Greek and Latin from 1985 to 1995 and finally Professor of Greek and Latin from 1995 to 2011. Diggle is a member of the Cambridge Philological Society (Chairman 1996–1998), the British Academy (since 1985) and a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens (since 2001).

Diggles research focus is the Greek tragedians, especially Euripides . He presented numerous studies on the textual criticism and the history of transmission of the tragedies, which he bundled into three monographs (1981, 1991, 1994). From 1981 to 1994 his critical edition of all Euripides tragedies appeared in the Oxford Classical Texts series . In 1998 an edition of selected fragments of the tragedy followed in the same series.

Diggle's other fields of research are the Roman poets Ovid and Gorippus , on whom he and Francis Richard David Goodyear presented a critical edition in 1970. Together with Goodyear, he published the little writings of Alfred Edward Housman in 1972 . Diggle is also an expert in Greek and Roman metrics. His most recent works include an annotated bilingual edition of Theophrast's characters (2004) and Studies on Ithaca (2005).

Diggle has been Associate Editor of the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries Series and Associate Editor of the Cambridge Greek Lexicon Project since 1977 .

Fonts (selection)

• Euripides, Phaethon. Edited with prolegomena and commentary . Cambridge 1970 ( Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 12)
• with Francis Richard David Goodyear: Flavii Cresconii Corippi Iohannidos seu de bellis Libycis libri VIII . Cambridge 1970
• Studies on the Text of Euripides . Oxford 1981
• Euripidis fabulae. Tomus 2: Supplices, Electra, Hercules, Troades, Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion . Oxford 1981
• Euripidis fabulae. Tomus 1: Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea, Heraclidae, Hippolytus, Andromacha, Hecuba . Oxford 1984
• The textual tradition of Euripides' Orestes . Oxford 1991
• Euripidis fabulae. Tomus 3: Helena, Phoenissae, Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigenia Aulidensis, Rhesus . Oxford 1994
• Euripidea: collected essays . Oxford 1994
• Cambridge orations 1982-1993: a selection . Cambridge 1994
• Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta selecta . Oxford 1998
• Theophrastus, Characters. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary . Cambridge 2004 ( Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 43)
• (with R. Bittlestone and J. Underhill): Odysseus Unbound: the search for Homer's Ithaca . Cambridge 2005.

Editing

• with Francis Richard David Goodyear: The Classical Papers of AE Housman . Three volumes, Oxford 1972
• with John Barrie Hall: Studies in Latin literature and its tradition in honor of CO Brink . Cambridge 1989

Web links

• James Diggle at the University of Cambridge (English)
• Biography at Debrett's People of Today (English)