Martin Litchfield West

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Martin Litchfield West OM (born September 23, 1937 in London , † July 13, 2015 in Oxford ) was a British classical philologist . He is one of the most prominent representatives of the subject, especially Greek studies .

life and work

West worked after studying Classical Philology at Oxford University . In 1960 he became a Junior Woodhouse Research Fellow at St John's College , and in 1963 a Fellow and Praelector in Classics at University College . He worked on the 1968 supplement to the Greek-English dictionary by Liddell and Scott . In 1974 he was appointed to the Chair of Greek Studies at the University of London . In 1994 he moved to All Souls College, Oxford University as a Senior Research Fellow , where he retired in 2004.

His research dealt with the music of ancient Greece , the relations between Greece and the Middle East, between shamanism and the Greek religion, and with Orphicism . In addition to Latin and Greek, he also used texts from the ancient languages ​​of the Middle East. Following this work, West also dealt with Indo-European culture and poetry. From 1998 to 2000 his critical edition of the text of the Iliad appeared in two volumes in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana . The section Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad is significant .

Awards

West was a full member of the British Academy , a member of the Academia Europaea and the American Philosophical Society as well as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen . In 1998 he received the Runciman Award . In 2000 he received the Balzan Prize for his work in archeology . At the British Academy's Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies (2002), West was named "the most brilliant and productive Graecist of his generation" .

bibliography

Books (selection)

Editing, commentary and translation of classical texts

  • Hesiod: Theogony. Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary by ML West. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1966.
  • Fragmenta Hesiodea. Edited by R. Merkelbach and ML West. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1967.
  • Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. 1: Archilochus. Hipponax. Theognidea. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1971.
  • Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. 2: Callinus. Mimnermus. Semonides. Solon. Tyrtaeus. Minora adespota. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1972.
  • Sing me, goddess. Being the first recitation of Homer's Iliad. Translation by ML West. Duckworth, London 1971, ISBN 0-7156-0595-X .
  • Theognidis et Phocylidis fragmenta et adespota quaedam gnomica. (= Small texts for lectures and exercises. Vol. 192). de Gruyter, Berlin 1978.
  • Hesiod: Works and Days. Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary by ML West. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1978.
  • Delectus ex Iambis et Elegis Graecis. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1980, ISBN 0-19-814589-6 .
  • Carmina Anacreontea. (= Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana ). Teubner, Leipzig 1984, ISBN 3-8154-1025-8 .
  • Euripides: Orestes. Edited with translation and commentary by ML West. Aris & Phillips, Warminster 1987, ISBN 0-85668-310-8 .
  • Hesiod: Theogony, and Works and Days. Translation and introduction by ML West. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-19-281788-4 .
  • Aeschyli: Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo. (= Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana ). Teubner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-519-01013-5 .
  • Greek Lyric Poetry. The poems and fragments of the Greek iambic, elegiac, and melic poets (excluding Pindar and Bacchylides) down to 450 BC verse translation by ML West. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993, ISBN 0-19-282360-4 .
  • Homeri: Iliad. Volume prius rhapsodias I-XII continens. (= Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana ). Teubner, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-519-01431-9 .
  • Homeri: Iliad. Volume alterum rhapsodias XIII-XXIV continens. (= Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana ). Saur, Leipzig / Munich 2000.
  • Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer. Edited and translation by ML West. (= The Loeb Classical Library. Vol. 496). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass 2003, ISBN 0-674-99606-2 .
  • Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Edited and translation by ML West. (= The Loeb Classical Library. Vol. 497). Harvard University Press, London / Cambridge, Mass. 2003, ISBN 0-674-99605-4 .
  • Spencer Barrett : Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers. Edited by ML West. Oxford / New York 2007 (essays on Stesichoros , Pindar , Bacchylides and Euripides )

literature

  • Robert Fowler: Martin Litchfield West . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy . tape XVII , 2018, p. 89-120 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/news/martin-west-1937-2015
  2. ^ Henry Georg Liddell, Robert Scott: A Greek-English lexicon. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1843; 9th edition, obtained from Henry Stuart Jones with Roderick McKenzie, ibid. 1940; 7. Anastatic reprint, with A supplement by EA Barber with the participation of P. Maas, M. Scheller and ML West, ibid 1968; several reprints up to 1996, ISBN 0-19-864226-1 .
  3. ^ Member History: Martin Litchfield West. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 31, 2019 (with autobiographical notes).
  4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from October 5, 2007 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ Table of contents for Greek lyric, tragedy, and textual criticism: collected papers / WS Barrett; assembled and edited by ML West at catdir.loc.gov, accessed August 15, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME West, Martin Litchfield
ALTERNATIVE NAMES West, Martin L.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 2015
Place of death Oxford