William Watson Goodwin

William Watson Goodwin

William Watson Goodwin (born May 9, 1831 in Concord , Massachusetts , † June 15, 1912 in Cambridge, Massachusetts ) was an American classical philologist who taught at Harvard University from 1856 to 1901 . With his academic teaching activities and his standard work Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb , he shaped two generations of Harvard students. He also made great contributions as a science organizer.

Life

Childhood, adolescence and studies

William Watson Goodwin was the only child of the Unitarian pastor Hersey Bradford Goodwin (1805-1836) and his wife Lucretia Ann Watson Goodwin († November 11, 1831). After the early death of his parents, Goodwin grew up with his maternal grandparents in Plymouth, Massachusetts , and received his first Greek lessons from his uncle Benjamin Marston Watson. From 1847 he studied Classical Philology at Harvard University with Charles Beck , Cornelius Conway Felton and Evangelinos Apostolides Sophocles , where he obtained his bachelor's degree (A. B.) in 1851 . He then worked as a tutor and continued his studies privately.

Because a graduate degree in philology was not yet possible in the United States at that time, Goodwin went to Germany for a few years in 1853 and matriculated at the University of Göttingen in March 1853 , where he attended lectures and exercises with Karl Friedrich Hermann and Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin . In October 1854 he moved to the University of Bonn and later to Berlin ; The American philologists George Martin Lane , William Dwight Whitney and Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve had studied at these universities a few years earlier . On June 29, 1855, Goodwin was promoted to Dr. phil. doctorate , he dedicated his dissertation on ancient chronology to his academic teacher Charles Beck.

After completing his doctorate, Goodwin traveled to Italy and Greece for a year with his college friend William Francis Allen .

Tutor and Professor at Harvard University

In 1856 Goodwin returned to the USA and took a position as a tutor in Greek and Latin (from 1857 tutor in Greek ) at Harvard University. In 1860 he was appointed as the successor to his academic teacher Felton to the Eliot Professor of Greek Literature and held this chair until his retirement in 1901. From 1903 to 1909 he was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers .

During his long career, Goodwin trained several generations of Harvard students. Together with Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve at Johns Hopkins University , he was the first classical philologist in the USA to enjoy great academic renown in Europe. In particular, his monograph on the syntax of Greek verbs was recognized worldwide and remained largely at American universities until the 20th century.

Goodwin's role as a science organizer was just as important. From 1859 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (President 1903-1908) and in 1869 a founding member of the American Philological Association , of which he was President in 1871/72 and 1884/85. In 1879 he founded the Archaeological Institute of America with his colleague Charles Eliot Norton . In 1882/83, Goodwin was the first president of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens . In recognition of his services, the Greek king awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Order of Savior . The German Archaeological Institute elected him on April 21, 1883 as a full member. 1895 was inducted into the American Philosophical Society . Goodwin later served as Vice President of the Egypt Exploration Fund .

For his services, numerous American and British universities Goodwin awarded the honorary doctorate : 1881 Amherst College , 1883 University of Cambridge , 1887, Columbia University , 1890, the University of Edinburgh , 1890, the University of Oxford , 1891, Harvard University, 1901, the University of Chicago and Yale University .

He was also an honorary member of the Cambridge Philological Society, the Hellenic Society of London , the Archaeological Society of Athens and the Greek Philological Society in Constantinople .

Scientific work

Goodwin's main research interests were Greek grammar, philosophy, legal and constitutional history. In grammar, he took a mediating position between Gottfried Hermann's school and the young grammarians : While Hermann's grammar, inspired by Kant , aimed to reduce the linguistic phenomena to a few rules that were valid in all languages, the young grammarians emphasized the individual differences between the individual languages. Goodwin, however, disregarded all normative claims and limited himself to a descriptive grammar by systematically describing and explaining the linguistic phenomena.

For academic teaching, Goodwin also created a Greek elementary grammar (1870) and various Greek reading books (partly together with Joseph Henry Allen and John Williams White ). Goodwin published academic treatises on Greek grammar in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology . The eleventh volume in this series was dedicated to his 50th anniversary as a Harvard graduate (1901).

Goodwin also published English translations by Greek writers. He revised three translations of his academic teacher and chair predecessor Cornelius Conway Felton : The Aristophanes comedies The Clouds (1858) and The Birds (1861), also Isocrates ' Panegyrikos (1863). In 1870 Goodwin published a five-volume translation of Plutarch's Moralia , which came from various translators and had six editions by 1889. After his retirement, Goodwin also published his own translations: first the Demosthenes speech against Meidias (1901) and Demosthenes' wreath speech (1906), then - on the occasion of a performance at Harvard University - a transmission of the Aeschylus tragedy Agamemnon (1906 ).

Fonts (selection)

• De potentiae veterum gentium maritimae epochis apud Eusebium . Göttingen 1855 (dissertation)
• Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb . Cambridge 1859. Reprinted Boston 1860. Revised edition 1889
• An Elementary Greek Grammar . Boston 1870
• with Joseph Henry Allen: Greek Reader . Boston 1871
• Selections from Xenophon and Herodotus . Boston 1877
• with John Williams White: The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis . Boston 1877
• Demosthenes: On the Crown . Cambridge 1901
• Demosthenes: Against Midias . Cambridge 1906
• Aeschylus: Agamemnon . Cambridge 1906

Editing

• Aristophanes: Clouds . Edited by Cornelius Conway Felton, rev. by William Watson Goodwin. Boston 1858
• Aristophanes: Birds . Edited by Cornelius Conway Felton, rev. by William Watson Goodwin. Boston 1861
• Isocrates: Panegyricus . Edited by Cornelius Conway Felton. 3rd, revised edition by William Watson Goodwin. Boston 1863
• Plutarch's Moralia . 5 volumes, Boston 1870

literature

• John Edwin Sandys : A Short History of Classical Scholarship from the Sixth Century B.C. to the Present Day . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1915, pp. 422-423 ( digitized ).
• Herbert Weir Smyth : William Watson Goodwin (1831-1912). In: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Vol. 53, 1917/18, pp. 805-816 ( digitized version ).
• Meyer Reinhold , Ward W. Briggs : Goodwin, William Watson . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists . Greenwood Press, Westport, CT / London 1994, ISBN 978-0-313245-60-2 , pp. 224-226.

Web links

• Entry in the Database of Classical Scholars

Individual evidence

1. ^ CP: A Memoir of the Rev. Hersey Bradford Goodwin . In: The Christian Examiner . No. 78, January 1837, pp. 273-291.
2. ↑ News from the Georg August University and the Königl. Society of Sciences in Göttingen . 1856, p. 141.
3. ↑ Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Athenian Department . Volume 8 (1883), p. 194.
4. ^ Member History: WW Goodwin. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 25, 2018 .