Willy Schetter

Willy Schetter (born April 1, 1928 in Essen , † November 19, 1992 in Bonn ) was a German classical philologist who worked as a professor in Mainz (1965–1972) and Bonn (1972–1992). His main subject was Latin studies .

Life

Willy Schetter was born in Essen in 1928 as the son of the engineer Theodor Schetter and his wife Maria (née Mombour). From 1934 he attended elementary school, from 1938 the Krupp high school, and from 1943 the modern language grammar school in Schleiden . Here he passed his school leaving examination in 1949 and began studying classical philology at the University of Bonn in the winter semester of 1949/50 . His teachers were Hans Herter , Wolfgang Schmid , Walther Kranz (subject didactics) and especially Ernst Robert Curtius . In the summer semester of 1952, Schetter became a member of the Philological Department. After a semester in Göttingen (summer semester 1954), Schetter passed the first state examination for Latin and Greek in Bonn in February 1956.

On August 1, 1956, Schetter was employed as a research assistant at the Middle Latin Dictionary in Munich . Here he wrote his dissertation, which was still inspired by Curtius, Investigations on the Epic Art of Statius , with which he received his doctorate in January 1957 in Bonn. After his position in Munich expired on January 15, 1958, he was employed on March 1, 1958 as a research assistant at the Philological Seminary in Bonn. In 1964 he completed his habilitation with the work Studies on the Tradition and Criticism of the Elegician Maximian , which represents the first attempt at a critical approach to the traditional textual form of the Elegies. The theme of Schetter's inaugural lecture was The Troerinnentragödie des Seneca . In 1965 he was appointed full professor at the University of Mainz . But in 1972 he went back to Bonn, where he succeeded Georg Luck, who had moved to the United States in 1971, in the Chair of Latin Philology. Schetter's lectures dealt primarily with post-classical Latin literature. He turned down a call to the University of Munich in 1975.

In May 1992, Schetter was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and treated as an inpatient. He died on November 19 of the same year. The funeral took place on November 26th. The four speeches given on May 7, 1993 at a commemoration ceremony for the Philosophical Faculty were published in book form in 1997 ( In memoriam Willy Schetter ). Christian Schmitt described Schetter's path in life, Otto Zwierlein his importance for science, his long-time friend Ernst Vogt told some very personal impressions of Schetter, and his student Klaus Philipp Seif remembered the academic teacher Schetter.

Services

Schetter's research dealt with Roman literature throughout antiquity from the perspective of literary theory, the critique of text and authenticity, and contemporary history. During his time in Munich he gained experience and knowledge of Latin literature from the archaic period (3rd century BC) to the Middle Ages. In addition to his above-mentioned works on the epic poet Statius , to whom he gave his place as old Vergilius (Latin "second Virgil "), and on the elegiac Maximian , he treated the works of Horace and analyzed the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus . He put his findings in the essay The book number of the Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus . In his essay on the poem De laudibus Dei by Dracontius , he analyzed the influences of the Tristia Ovids and De precatio ad Hadrianum by Claudian on the poem.

Schetter's work Das Roman Epos (Wiesbaden 1978) provides a good overview of the development of the epic genre in Roman literature . For the handbook of Latin literature in antiquity , Schetter wrote Volume VII Profaned Poetry and Art Prose (about the time of the Great Migration ), which was published posthumously by Jochem Küppers after his death . Schetter made numerous contributions to volume V Epigraphic Poetry , in which he combined epigraphic research with literary theory. He also provided many articles for the Lexicon of the Old World , the New Handbook of Literary Studies and the Gnomon magazine .

After Karl Büchner's death in 1981, Schetter became the editor of Hermes magazine . After his death in 1992, Siegmar Döpp became his successor. Schetters last work, the continuation of the edition and commentary on the biography of the Holy Severus of Ravenna (started by Bernhard Bischoff ), after his death of Otto Zwierlein completed and published 1994th

literature

• Obituary for Willy Schetter. In: Hermes 121 (1993), page 1.
• Christian Schmitt, Otto Zwierlein, Ernst Vogt, Klaus Philipp Seif: In memoriam Willy Schetter . Bouvier Verlag , Bonn 1997. ISBN 3-416-02752-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Willy Schetter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilt Aden Schröder : Biogram of Willy Schetter in the scholarly historical prosopography of the Teuchos Center