Scholarship and Controversy: Centenary Essays on the Life and Work of Sir Kenneth Dover

by Stephen Halliwell (Editor), Christopher Stray (Editor)

Overview

The essays collected in this volume were written to mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Kenneth Dover, one of the twentieth century's most influential classical scholars. Between them, they explore the two major sides of his career: his groundbreaking scholarship on Greek language, literature and history, and the more public-facing roles he assumed in universities and at the British Academy which brought him into the national spotlight, not without some notoriety, in his later years.

The contributors consider the various facets of Dover's life and work from a range of perspectives which reflect the burgeoning field of the history of scholarship. Some contributors were students and colleagues of Dover's at different stages of his career, while others are themselves leading experts in areas of Classics to which he devoted his energies. Chapters on his academic publications and on the controversies he faced in the public realm are not bland celebrations of his legacy but offer critical assessments of his motivations and achievements, cumulatively demonstrating that there is much to be learned not just about Dover himself but also about the fields he helped to shape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350333475
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/09/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Stephen Halliwell is Wardlaw Professor Emeritus of Greek at the University of St Andrews, UK. His books include Aristotle's Poetics (Bloomsbury, 1986), Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity (2008) and a commentary on Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime (2022).

Christopher Stray is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Swansea, UK. His publications include Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities, and Society 1830-1960 (1998) and Classics in Britain: Scholarship, Education, and Publishing 1800-2000 (2018).
Stephen Halliwell is Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews, UK. He is the author of The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (1987) also published by Bloomsbury, and Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity (2008).
Christopher Stray is Honorary Research Fellow, University of Swansea, and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Classics, University of London. He is a leading authority on the history of classical scholarship. His publications include Remaking the Classics: Literature, Genre and Media in Britain, 1800-2000 (2007) A.E. Housman: Classical Scholar (2009) and Classical Dictionaries: Past, Present and Future (2010).

Table of Contents

List of Images
List of Contributors
Preface
List of Abbreviations

Introduction (Christopher Stray, Swansea University, UK)

Part I The Life
Dover at school and university (with an Appendix: Two poems by Kenneth Dover) (Christopher Stray, Swansea University, UK)
Dover, Oxford and the study of classical literature: the making of a professional scholar (Tim Rood, University of Oxford, UK)
Dover and St Andrews (Elizabeth Craik, University of St Andrews, UK )
Dover and Corpus (with two Appendices) (Ewen Bowie, University of Oxford, UK)
Dover, Blunt and the British Academy (Robin Osborne, University of Cambridge, UK)
Marginal Comment: composition, publication and reception (Christopher Stray, Swansea University, UK)

Part II The Work
Dover on Thucydides (Christopher Pelling, University of Oxford, UK)
Dover and Plato's Symposium: attraction, aversion and intemperance (Frisbee Sheffield, University of Cambridge, UK)
Dover and Greek popular morality (Christopher Stray, Swansea University, UK)
Dover and drama (Constanze Güthenke, University of Oxford, UK)
After Greek Homosexuality (Carol Atack, University of Cambridge, UK)
Dover's inch: reflections on the art-historical method in Greek Homosexuality (with an Appendix: Dover's list of vases collated against Beazley's corpora by provenance) (Jas Elsner, University of Oxford, UK)
Dover and Theocritus (Richard Hunter, University of Cambridge, UK)
No stone unturned: Dover as historian of Greek language between epigraphy and literature (Lucia Prauscello, University of Oxford, UK)
Dover on style (Ben Cartlidge, University of Oxford, UK)

Epilogue
Dover and the public face of Classics (with an Appendix: Kenneth Dover, 'The value of Classics', an article translated from the Italian original) (Stephen Halliwell, University of St Andrews, UK)
Memories of Kenneth Dover (Rebecca Dover, Sir Brian Harrison, Jay Parini, David Stuttard)

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Dover's monumental scholarly achievement, clothed in a clarity of exposition that is a lesson to us all, ranks him as the leading Hellenist of his generation, and one of the finest the world has seen. The questions that this admirably wide-ranging book has raised about some aspects of his methodology do not shake that judgment, and suggest as many questions about modern methodologies as they do about Dover's. As for the 'searingly honest' portrait he paints of himself in his autobiography, it remains largely unaffected and an extraordinary testament to the man himself.” —Classics for All

From the Publisher