Richard Porson

Richard Porson

Richard Porson (born December 25, 1759 in East Ruston , Norfolk , † September 25, 1808 in London ) was a British classical philologist . He is best known for his research on the textual criticism and metrics of the Greek tragedians.

Life

Richard Porson came from a modest background: his father was a weaver and community servant, his mother the daughter of a shoemaker. Through his above-average performance in the village school, he won the support of a local landowner who enabled him to attend Eton College from 1774 to 1778. After graduating from high school, Porson studied philology at Trinity College , Cambridge, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1782 and a master's degree in 1785 . Immediately after graduating, he was made a fellow of the college. He lived in secure circumstances and was able to devote himself to scientific publication. He has written numerous reviews in which he entered on text-critical problems and many corrupt passages emended . His first major publications were an edition of the Anabasis Xenophons (1786) and the Notae breves ad Toupii emendationes in Suidam (1790) established his national fame as a text critic, which also earned him recognition abroad. During this time he also came into contact with Edward Gibbon , Christian Gottlob Heyne and Gottfried Hermann .

Despite his international reputation as an excellent researcher, Porson's academic career was in jeopardy. His fellowship was terminated in 1792 because he had not been ordained a priest. Porson declined a formal ordination of conscience and only kept the chair of Greek ( Regius Professor of Greek ), which he had received in the same year. Since Porson did not receive a layman fellowship , he moved to London and lived there as a private scholar. He made a living from publications, donations from supporters and the salary of his Cambridge professorship (which made him £ 40 a year). In Cambridge, Porson still took exams every year, but no longer lectured. His situation only improved in 1806 when he was hired as a librarian at the newly formed London Institution . Since Porson had no duties in this office, but only received the title and income ( sinecure ), the post was a late honor for his achievements as a scientist.

Porson's lasting merit is the text-critical research into Greek tragedy. He published critical editions of the tragedies of Aeschylus (1795) and Euripides ( Hekabe , 1797. Orestes , 1798. Phoenissai , 1799. Medea , 1801) anonymously . In the second edition of his Hekabe edition (1802) he formulated a metric rule, which has since been known as Porson's law , and which marks a fundamental metric difference between tragedy and comedy.

literature

• Martin Lowther Clarke: Richard Porson. A Biographical Essay. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1937, ( online ).
• Geoffrey V. Morson: Porson, Richard (1759-1808) . In: Robert B. Todd: The Dictionary of British Classicists , Volume 3 (O-Z), pp. 784-787. Bristol 2004. ISBN 1-85506-997-0 .
• PG Naiditch: The Library of Richard Porson . Xlibris 2011. ISBN 9781456805272 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Richard Porson in the catalog of the German National Library