John Conington

John Conington (born August 10, 1825 in Boston , Lincolnshire , † October 23, 1869 there ) was a British classical philologist .

Life

Conington was the eldest son of the Reverend Richard Conington of Boston, Lincolnshire. He is said to have learned the alphabet at fourteen months and reading at three and a half years. After attending Beverley Grammar School and Rugby School , he moved to Oxford University . There he was enrolled at University College on June 30, 1843 and shortly thereafter admitted to Magdalen College , where he had received a demyship , a college-specific scholarship. In 1844 he received the Hertford and Ireland scholarships. In March 1846 he received a scholarship from University College and graduated in December of the same year with a First Class degree in literae humaniores . One of his academic teachers was the Graecist William Linwood (1817–1878). In the summer of 1847 he traveled to Dresden with his friends Goldwin Smith (1823–1910) and William Benjamin Philpot (1823–1889) and sought out Gottfried Hermann for a conversation.

In February 1848 he was made a Fellow of Oxford University. He won the Chancellor's prize for Latin poetry (1847), for the essay in English (1848) and for the essay in Latin (1849). In 1848 he was made a fellow of the university. Because of the low prospect of an academic career, he successfully applied for the Eldon law scholarship in 1849 and went to London to the Lincoln's Inn ; however, he gave up the fellowship after six months and returned to Oxford . During his brief stay in London, Conington had begun writing for the Morning Chronicle and did so after he left London. An interest in university reform was expressed in a number of articles (1849–1850).

After three uncertain years, in 1854 he was appointed first professor of Latin Language and Literature established by Corpus Christi College .

From then on he devoted his energies almost exclusively to Latin literature. The only exception was the translation of the last twelve books of the Iliad in the Spenserstrophe in order to complete the work begun by Philip Stanhope Worsley (1835–1866) and to keep the promise made to the friend. In 1859 Conington was involved in an affair by the young John Addington Symonds , in which it was about homoerotic tendencies and the homosexuality of the headmaster of the Harrow School , Charles John Vaughan (1816-1897).

plant

At the beginning of Conington's scientific career there were editions of Agamemnon (1848) and the Choephoren of Aeschylus (1857). In an Epistola Critica from 1852 addressed to Thomas Gaisford , he made suggestions for textual criticism of the fragments of the three traditional Greek tragedians. In an essay for the Rheinisches Museum für Philologie from 1861, revised in the Edinburgh Review of April 1861 and reprinted in the Miscellaneous Writings , he showed the inauthenticity of the second half of the Fables of Babrios , whose handwriting by Konstantinos Minas to the British in 1857 Museum had been sold. In 1852 he began a complete edition of Virgil's works with commentary with Goldwin Smith . However, Goldwin Smith had to withdraw from the project early on for professional reasons. The first volume appeared in 1858, the second in 1864 and the third posthumously in 1871. Henry Nettleship brought this last volume to print, as did an edition of the Satires of Persius . Philip Hardie obtained a modern reprint of the Virgil edition . Conington also received much praise for his translations of the poems of Horace , for the above-mentioned translation of the second half of the Iliad and for the translation of Virgil's Aeneid into English meter.

The Conington Prize

Since 1871 the Conington Prize has been awarded annually for an outstanding dissertation at Oxford University in alternating one of the three categories: Classical literature, textual criticism and comparative linguistics; Ancient History, Religion, Art, and Archeology; or ancient philosophy and history of ideas.

Fonts (selection)

Editions

• The Agamemnon of Aeschylus ; the Greek text with a translation into English verse and notes critical and explanatory by John Conington. John W. Parker, West Strand, London 1848 ( archive.org ).
• Epistola Critica de Quibusdam AEschyli, Sophoclis, Euripidis Fragmentis Ad Virum Admodum Reverendum Thomam Gaisford… F. MacPherson, Oxford 1852.
• The Choephoroe of Aeschylus : with notes, critical and explanatory, by John Conington. JW Parker and Son, London 1857 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).
• P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil , with a Commentary by John Conington, MA Professor of Latin, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College; Late Fellow of University College, Oxford.
  • Vol. I containing the Eclogues and the Georgics. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, George Bell, Fleet Street, London 1858 ( archive.org ).
    • Second edition 1865.
    • Fourth edition, revised, with corrected orthography and additional notes and essays, by Henry Nettleship MA, Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, George Bell, Fleet Street, London 1881 ( archive.org ).
    • Fifth edition, revised by Francis Haverfield , London 1898.
  • Vol. II containing the first six books of the Aeneid. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, George Bell, Fleet Street, London 1863 ( archive.org ).
    • Fourth edition, revised, with corrected orthography and additional notes and essays, by Henry Nettleship MA, Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, George Bell, Fleet Street, London 1884 ( archive.org ).
  • P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil , with a Commentary by John Conington, MA, Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford, Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. And Henry Nettleship, MA, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Assistant Master in Harrow School. Vol. III containing the last six books of the Aeneid. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, George Bell, Fleet Street, London 1871 ( archive.org ).
  • Conington's Virgil. Edited by John Conington and Philip R. Hardie. Set of Six Volumes. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2009.
• P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil , with a Commentary by John Conington, MA Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane, London 1876 ( perseus.tufts.edu ).
• The Satires of A. Persius Flaccus , with a translation and commentary by John Conington. To which is prefixed A Lecture on the Life and Writings of Persius, delivered at Oxford by the same author, January 1855. Edited by H. Nettleship. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1872.
  • Second edition, revised. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1874.
  • Third edition, revised. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1893 ( archive.org ); Reprinted by Georg Olms Verlagbuchhandlung, Hildesheim 1967, Google Books ; Reprinted by Bristol Classical Press, London 1998.

Small fonts

• Miscellaneous Writings of John Conington. Edited by John Addington Symonds . With a memoir by Henry John Stephen Smith . 2 vols., Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1872 ( archive.org ).

Translations

• The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. Translated into English verse by John Conington. Bell and Daldy, London 1863.
• The Iliad of Homer. Translated into English verse in the Spenserian stanza by Philip Stanhope Worsley. Volume II: Books XIII. – XXIV . Translated by John Conington. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London 1868, ( archive.org or books.google.de ). - (The first volume with books I – XII was translated by Worsley alone)
• The Satires, Epistles, and Art of poetry of Horace. Translated into English verse by John Conington, MA Bell & Daldy, London 1869, second edition 1871.
• The Aeneid of Virgil translated into English verse. AC Armstrong and Son, New York 1886 ( archive.org ); WJ Widdleton, New York 1867 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de ).

literature

• Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro : Obituary of John Conington. In: Journal of Philology. 2, 1869, 334-336.
• John W. Cousin (Ed.): Conington, John. In: A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. JM Dent & Sons, London 1910, p. 94 (English full text [Wikisource] - Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
• Henry Nettleship:  Conington, John . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 12:  Conder - Craigie. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London, 1887, pp 13 - 17 (English).
• Conington, John . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 6 : Châtelet - Constantine . London 1910, p. 942 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Francis Cairns : Conington, John. In: Enciclopedia Virgiliana. Istituto dell 'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1984-1991.
• Phyllis Grosskurth (Ed.): The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds. Hutchinson, London 1984, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1986, ISBN 0-226-78783-4 , passim.
• Paul G. Naiditch: Classical Studies in nineteenth-century Great Britain as background to the 'Cambridge Ritualists'. In: William M. Calder III (Ed.), The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered. Scholars Press, Atlanta GA 1991, pp. 123–151, there pp. 140–141 with note 51.
• Richard Smail: Conington, John (1825-1869). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . 2004. - (Revision of Henry Nettleship's entry)
• Anne Rogerson: Conington's 'Roman Homer'. In: Christopher Stray (ed.), Oxford Classics: Teaching and Learning 1800–2000. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, ( books.google.de ).

Web links

Wikisource: Author: John Conington  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Writings of John Conington in the Internet Archive
• The Book of DIDO John Conington's translation of Aeneid IV from 1846
• Trinity Philosophy Professor Receives Conington Prize. University of Oxford gives prestigious philosophy award to Damian Caluori , January 26, 2011