WALTER HEADLAM. His Letters and Poems. With a Memoir by Cecil Headlam and a Bibliography by L. Haward.
Duckworth, London, 1910. IX,171p. Cloth. Upper edge gilded. Fore edge a bit foxed. Cover a bit stained. Head and tail spine a bit worn. Pages a bit rust stained. Some photocopies on the subject loosely inserted. With signature from Prof. W.G. Arnott on free endpaper.
(Dr. Walter Headlam, 1866-1908). 'The news of the sudden death of Dr. Walter Headlam on the 20th of June brought, not only to his many friends, but to all lovers of Greek, a sense of irreparable loss. The recent publication of his 'Book of Greek Verse' had made it clear to a large circle of readers that a real master of Greek was among them; and his friends to whom this had been known for many years, were rejoicing in the thought that Headlam was as length stepping into his due place among the scholars of Europe. For a long time anxieties as to his health, and an unwillingness to put forth anything that had not received the last touch of completeness, had stood in his way; but of late these obstacles seemed to have been overcome, public appearances were no longer distasteful, and the consciousness that he possessed stores of knowledge, ripened and ready to be given to the world, was strong within him. The quality of his published work (…) affords some means of judging how high he would have ranked as an interpreter of Greek literature, and, in particular of the Greek drama. Not only was his linguistic sense unsurpassed - few can have understood so well as he the whole machinery of Greek diction - but he had really absorbed the Greek view of live. He was, moreover, exceptionally well equipped for the struggle with textual problems, possessing as he did an insight into the meaning of Greek lyric metres, into the forms of textual corruption, and the habits of scholiasts, which may fairly be called marvelous. But he must not be thought of as a scholar of the antiquarian type. To him Greek was (…) the 'Living Language', and its poetry was clear to him, not as a field wherein to exercise ingenuity of present worth and display erudition, but as literature of present worth and meaning. (…)' (N.N. in The Classical Review 1908, p.163). From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott.
€ 39.50
(Antiquarian)