- Eduard Fraenkel
Eduard David Mortier Fraenkel (
17 March 1888 ,Berlin –5 February 1970 ,Oxford ) was a German-Englishphilologist .Background and early life
Eduard Fraenkel was born to Jewish parents in
Berlin . His father was a wine dealer, and his mother the daughter of an important publishing family. At the age of ten, Fraenkel suffered from an attack ofosteomyelitis in his right arm that deformed his right hand. From 1897 to 1906 he attended the Askanisches Gymnasium in Berlin, where he was educated in Greek and Latin. At University, he began to study law, but soon turned his attention to Classics at Berlin University under the great philologistUlrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff . After two years, he moved from Berlin toGöttingen where he stayed until 1912, studying under Friedrich Leo.Later life
Losing his post under the antisemitic laws passed in 1933, Fraenkel emigrated to Britain and in 1934 took up the Chair in Latin at
Corpus Christi College, Oxford . He held this post throughout the war until he was forced to retire under the age limit in 1951. Nonetheless, Corpus Christi and the "Oxford University Literae Humaniores Board" secured funding for Fraenkel to continue his popular seminars.Death
Fraenkel committed suicide in January 1970, aged 81, shortly after the death (by natural causes) of his wife.
Works
Eduard Fraenkel was one of the most prominent and respected classical philologists of the 20th century, publishing monumental studies of both Greek and Latin poets. Most well known are his book-length study of the Roman comic poet
Plautus , "Plautinisches im Plautus", later expanded and translated into Italian as "Elementi Plautini in Plauto", his magisterial three volume text, commentary, and translation of the Agamemnon ofAeschylus , which remains one of the standard works of scholarship on that play, and a valuable study of the lyric poetry ofHorace .Writings (Select)
*1922 "Plautinisches bei Plautus", Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
**2007 "Plautine Elements inPlautus ", translated by Tomas Drevikovsky and Frances Muecke, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*1926 "Die Stelle des Römertums in der humanistischen Bildung", Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
*1928 "Iktus und Akzent im lateinischen Sprechvers", Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
*1930 "Gedanken zu einer deutschen Vergilfeier", Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
*1933 "Das Pindargedicht des Horaz", Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
*1950 "Aeschylus : Agamemnon, edited with a commentary", Oxford: Clarendon Press.
**1957 "Der Agamemnon des Aeschylus", Zürich: Artemis.
*1957 "Die sieben Redenpaare im Thebanerdrama des Aeschylus", München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
*1957 "Horace ", Oxford: Clarendon Press
**1963 "Horaz", Darmstadt: WBG.
*1962 "Beobachtungen zu Aristophanes", Rom: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
*1963 "Zu den Phoenissen des Euripides", München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
*1965 "Noch einmal Kolon und Satz", München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
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