Willy Theiler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willy Theiler ( Max Wilhelm Theiler ; born October 24, 1899 in Adliswil ; † February 26, 1977 in Bern ) was a Swiss classical philologist who worked as a professor at the Universities of Königsberg (1932–1944) and Bern (1944–1968).

Life

Willy Theiler, the son of an industrialist, attended high school in Zurich and began studying classical philology at the university there in 1918 . In 1919 he moved to Basel , where Peter von der Mühll was his academic teacher. Theiler spent the winter semester 1921/1922 in Göttingen , the following two semesters in Berlin with Eduard Norden , Werner Jaeger and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff . When he returned to Basel, Theiler received his doctorate from Aristotle in 1924 with his dissertation The teleological observation of nature . In the following years he worked as a substitute teacher at various Swiss grammar schools and finally went to the University of Kiel as Eduard Fraenkel's assistant , where he achieved his habilitation on December 10, 1927 . His habilitation thesis The Preparation of Neoplatonism was the beginning of his lifelong preoccupation with the development of Platonic philosophy.

After his habilitation in Kiel, Theiler was appointed to the chair of Classical Philology (with a focus on Latin Studies ) at the University of Königsberg in 1932 as the successor to Kurt Latte . Theiler worked here for many years, including during the National Socialist rule. Theiler was in contact with his colleague, the Graecist Paul Maas , for a long time, even after Maas lost his professorship in 1934 as a “non-Aryan”. Theiler, together with Alfred Körte , Eduard Schwartz and Bernhard Schweitzer, submitted a petition to the Ministry of Culture to reverse Maas' retirement, but without success. In the following years Theiler also gave Greek courses in Königsberg. He became involved in the Königsberg learned society and in 1937 married Georgine Burckhardt, his former student colleague in Basel.

A few months before Königsberg was cut off from the German Reich in World War II , Theiler received a call from the University of Bern to the Graecist chair in 1944 , which had become vacant when Édouard Tièche retired . Theiler held this chair until his retirement in 1968. In that year the University of Bonn awarded him an honorary doctorate and the British Academy made him a corresponding member in 1965.

Since 1967 Theiler suffered from severe asthma , which restricted his ability to move. In addition, an eye disease made his scientific work difficult. Nevertheless, Theiler remained active in research until he died on February 26, 1977 after a brief, serious illness.

Services

Willy Theiler's research was mainly related to Greek literature. He published studies on the structure of Homeric epics, on the poets Sappho , Simonides von Keos and Pindar , on the Elektra dramas and the tragedy writer Euripides , on epigrams and hymns from late antiquity . He also published several essays on the historical view of ancient historians. A selection of his writings is collected in the anthology Investigations on Ancient Literature (Berlin 1970).

The focus of his research was ancient philosophy, to which his dissertation and his habilitation thesis were already dedicated. The preparation of Neoplatonism (Berlin 1930) was considered a fundamental work and was reprinted in 1964 and 2001. The essay collection Research on Neo-Platonism (Berlin 1966) contains his contributions to this research area. In addition to Neoplatonism, Theiler also dealt with the philosophy of Aristotle . In numerous translations and school text editions he contributed to a greater awareness of ancient philosophy.

He influenced the research of his Koenigsberg colleague Carl Schneider through his thesis of the "immanent development of Greece into religion" . It says "that the transition from Hellenism to Christianity took place without a break, because even the Old Testament was only received by Christianity in the Greek interpretation".

As an academic teacher, Theiler had a large number of students. Until his death he supervised numerous dissertations, 26 of which were completed with him (and others at other universities). His first doctoral student was Georg von Reutern (1906-1945), who in 1932 in Kiel with the dissertation Plutarch's position on poetry. Interpretation of the text 'De audiendis poetis' (Kiel 1933).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theiler (1978) 503.
  2. ↑ See for example Ernst Grumach , Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Aristoteles. Works in German translation. 19 volumes, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1956 ff.
  3. ↑ Carl Schneider: Spiritual history of Christian antiquity. dtv, Munich 1978. S. IX.
personal data
SURNAME Theiler, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Theiler, Wilhelm; Theiler, Max Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Adliswil
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1977
Place of death Bern