Otto Skutsch

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Otto Skutsch (born December 6, 1906 in Breslau , † December 8, 1990 in London ) was a German classical philologist .

Life

Otto Skutsch was born the son of the Latinist Franz Skutsch . The academic family was Protestant, but had Jewish roots. Otto Skutsch studied classical philology at the universities of Breslau, Kiel, Berlin and Göttingen. His teachers included the most renowned classical philologists of his time: Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Felix Jacoby and, above all, Eduard Fraenkel , with whom he had a difficult but close relationship. Skutsch received his doctorate in Göttingen in 1931 and received a scholarship to work on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich. In 1934 his scholarship was not extended due to his Jewish origin. With the help ofJames Houston Baxter (1894-1973), professor of church history at St. Andrews , who was looking for a research assistant, Skutsch emigrated to Scotland in November 1934, where he worked until 1938 on a dictionary of late Latin.

After a year as an assistant at Queen's University in Belfast, he moved to Manchester with his British wife Gilian Stewart. 1939–1951 he taught Latin at the Victoria University of Manchester there . In 1946 he became a British citizen. In 1951 he was appointed professor of classical philology at University College London . He held the prestigious chair that AE Housman once represented until his retirement in 1972.

In the 1950s and 1960s Skutsch and the ancient historian Arnaldo Momigliano made London a Mecca for students of ancient history and classical philology and shaped an entire generation of students. Skutsch's recollections ( Recollections of scholars I have known ) give a vivid impression of the heyday of classical philology in the 20th century. Through numerous research stays and as a visiting professor in the USA, Skutsch also had an influence on classical philology in the United States (Harvard 1958, 1973; Pittsburgh 1972–73, 1981; Princeton 1963, 1968, 1974).

Skutsch has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Padua and St. Andrews for his achievements. He has been an honorary member of the British Academy of Sciences since 1987 .

Services

Skutsch considered himself an expert on the metrics and language of Latin comedy, the fragments of early Latin epic, and the formal aspects of classical poetry. His doctoral thesis, written in Göttingen in 1931, examines the process of lamb shortening . The starting point for Skutsch's study were the observations of his father Franz, who had described the phenomenon in early Latin verses. Complemented with his own observations in late Latin verses, he formulated the brevis brevians law , which can be found in every manual today, and states that "a short syllable shortens a following long if it is preceded or followed by an accent".

The focus of his research were the Ennius fragments and the edition of the Annals of Ennius can be seen as his life's work. On the recommendation of Eduard Fraenkel, Skutsch was commissioned by the Oxford Press with a new edition of the Annales . He was supposed to finish the work in five years, but actually worked on it for over forty years. By the time the edition was published in 1985, he had dealt with the details of textual criticism, metrics and prosody in numerous articles and mishaps. Skutsch's edition received just as much praise as it did criticism. The Ennius researcher Sebastiano Timpanaro in particular criticized Skutsch for having carried out "conjectural excesses". Despite all the criticism, Skutsch's Ennius Edition is still a standard work today.

Skutsch also did research in the field of Indo-European linguistics . One of his last publications ( Helen, her Name and nature , 1987) discussed u. a. a connection between the Greek Helena and the Vedic Saraṇyū .

Fonts (selection)

  • Prosodic and metric laws of abbreviation . Goettingen 1934.
  • Studia Enniana . London 1968.
  • Ennius. Sept exposés suivis de discussions. Entretiens préparés et présidés par Otto Skutsch. Vandoeuvres-Genève, 23–29 août 1971 . In: Entretiens sur l'Antiquité classique . Volume 17, Hardt Foundation, Genève, 1972.
  • The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Edited with introduction and commentary . Oxford 1985; corrected reprint Oxford 1986.
  • Helen, her name and nature . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 107, 1987, pp. 188-193.
  • Recollections of Scholars I have known . In: Anton Bierl, William M. Calder III (Ed.): Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . Volume 94, 1992, pp. 387-408.

literature

  • Katja Bär: Otto Skutsch . In: Robert B. Todd (Ed.): Dictionary of British Classicists . Bristol 2004, pp. 899-901.
  • George Patrick Goold : Otto Skutsch 1906–1990 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . Volume 87, 1995, pp. 473-489, (online) .
  • Nicholas Horsfall (Ed.): Vir bonus discendi peritus. Studies in celebration of Otto Skutsch's eightieth birthday (= Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London, Suppl. 51). London 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Skutsch: Recollections of Scholars I have known . In: Anton Bierl, William M. Calder III (Ed.): Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . Volume 94, 1992, pp. 387-408, p. 392.
  2. ↑ Katja Bär: Otto Skutsch . In: Robert B. Todd (Ed.): Dictionary of British Classicists . Bristol 2004.
  3. ^ Otto Skutsch: Recollections of Scholars I have known . In: Anton Bierl, William M. Calder III (Ed.): Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . Volume 94, 1992, pp. 387-408.
  4. ^ GP Goold: Otto Skutsch 1906–1990 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . Volume 87, 1995, pp. 473-489.
  5. ^ Otto Skutsch: Recollections of Scholars I have known . In: Anton Bierl, William M. Calder III (Ed.): Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . Volume 94, 1992, pp. 387-408, here p. 388.
  6. ↑ Otto Skutsch: Brevis Brevians . In: Oxford Classical Dictionary , 1st edition, 1949.
  7. ^ Sebastiano Timpanaro: Otto Skutsch's Ennius . In: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies . Suppl. 51, 1988, pp. 1-12, here p. 4.
personal data
SURNAME Skutsch, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1990
Place of death London