Thomas G. Rosenmeyer

Thomas Gustav Rosenmeyer (born April 3, 1920 in Hamburg , † February 6, 2007 in Oakland , California ) was a German-American classical philologist . Until his retirement in 1990, he was Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Studies at the University of California, Berkeley . Rosenmeyer's research interests were in the literature of classical Greece , especially the philosopher Plato .

Life

Rosenmeyer was born in Hamburg and attended the Johanneum School of Academics there from 1930 to 1938 . In 1939 he fled from the National Socialists to London , where he enrolled at the School of Oriental and African Studies . In anticipation of an imminent invasion of German troops, many alleged German spies were arrested in England in 1940; Rosenmeyer was taken to a detention center in Canada . There he met the later classical philologist Martin Ostwald and the philosopher Emil Fackenheim . After Rosenmeyer was released from internment in 1942, he studied classical studies at McMaster University in Hamilton , Ontario , and graduated in 1944 with a bachelor's degree . He then earned his master's degree at the University of Toronto and moved to Harvard University in 1945 for his doctoral studies . He took his first teaching position in 1947 at the University of Iowa ; in the meantime he translated Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Spirit and worked on his dissertation . Rosenmeyer obtained his doctorate in 1949 with the work “The Isle of Critias” on Plato's Atlantis .

After a short stay at Smith College (1952-55) Rosenmeyer followed a call to the University of Washington , where he was appointed full professor. Encouraged by his colleagues Paul Friedländer ( UCLA ) and Hermann Fränkel ( Stanford ), Rosenmeyer now turned more to comparative literature. In 1966 he received a call to the University of California at Berkeley. There he served temporarily as dean of both the Department of Classics (1973–75) and the Department of Comparative Literature (1979–81). His retirement took place in 1990, after which Rosenmeyer received a “Berkeley Citation”, the university's highest honor.

In addition to visiting professorships at various universities such as Princeton (1975) and Harvard (1984), Rosenmeyer has received numerous awards in the course of his career: two Guggenheim Fellowships , an NEH Fellowship, as well as an election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1987) and in the American Philosophical Society (2000).

Rosenmeyer died at the age of 86 at his home in Oakland, California.

Work (selection)

Rosenmeyer mainly dealt with classical Greek literature. His early work includes numerous essays on Plato. Later Rosenmeyer also turned to Latin literature.

• “Gorgias, Aeschylus and Apatê ”, in: American Journal of Philology 76, 1955, pp. 225-60.
• “Plato's Atlantis Myth: Timaeus or Critias ?”, In: Phoenix 10, 1956, pp. 163-72.
• “Hesiod and Historiography (Erga 106-201)”, in: Hermes 85, 1957, pp. 257-85.
• The Masks of Tragedy: Essays on Six Greek Dramas , Austin 1963.
• The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric , Berkeley 1969.
• "Electoral Act and Decision-Making Process in Ancient Tragedy", in: Poetica 10, 1978, pp. 1-24.
• “Drama”, in: MI Finley (Ed.), The Legacy of Greece , Oxford 1981, pp. 120-54.
• The Art of Aeschylus , Berkeley 1982.
• Deina Ta Polla: A Classicists' Checklist of Twenty Literary-Critical Positions (= Arethusa Monographs 12), Buffalo 1988.
• Senecan Drama and Stoic Cosmology , Berkeley 1989.
• “Name-setting and Name-using: Elements of Socratic Foundationalism in Plato's Cratylus ”, in: Ancient Philosophy 18, 1998, pp. 41-60.

Web links

• UC Berkeley Department of Classics: Thomas G. Rosenmeyer: Distinguished colleague passes away
• Biography and bibliography by Thomas G. Rosenmeyer 2007
• The digitized commemorative publication Cabinet of the Muses on Rosenmeyer's 70th birthday in 1990