Bernard Knox

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Bernard Knox
Born(1914-11-24)24 November 1914
PhD)
GenreClassics
Notable worksThe Norton Book of Classical Literature (1993); The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics (1993); Introductions to The Iliad (1991), The Odyssey (1997), and The Aeneid (2006)
Notable awardsJefferson Lecture (1992)

Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox (November 24, 1914 – July 22, 2010

classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies.[2][3] In 1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.[4]

Biography

Knox was born in 1914 in the City of

Macgregor Knox,[1]
is a prominent historian of 20th century Europe.

Bored with his first Army assignment with an anti-aircraft battery in England, Knox volunteered for work with the

Yale.[11]
In the army, he achieved the rank of captain.

Knox taught at Yale until 1961,[8] when he was appointed the first director of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. After fulfilling a previous commitment to spend a year as Sather Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, Knox served as director of the Center from 1962 until his retirement in 1985.[2] He continued to write prolifically.

Knox is known for his efforts to make classics more accessible to the public.

Stratford Shakespeare Festival.[13] He taught the poet Robert Fagles at Yale, and became Fagles's lifelong friend[14] and the author of the introductions and notes for Fagles's translations of Sophocles's three Theban plays, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid.[15] Reviewing the Fagles Iliad in The New York Times, classicist Oliver Taplin described Knox's 60-page introduction as "His Master's Voice, taking the best of contemporary scholarship and giving it special point and vividness, as only Mr. Knox can."[16]
His combat experiences in World War II subtly inform these introductions.

Knox was the editor of The Norton Book of Classical Literature

Agamemnon;[18] the award committee described Knox's work as "a brilliant review of a major theatrical event" in which Knox "recognized that the director was attempting to solve the central problem of this play by finding a new way to express long passages of lyric language that have lost their immediacy for modern audiences."[11] In 1990 he received the first PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his book Essays Ancient and Modern.[19]

Knox is also known for his role in the controversy over similarities between Stephen Spender's World Within World and David Leavitt's While England Sleeps: it was Knox, reviewing Leavitt's book for The Washington Post, who first pointed out its similarities to Spender's older memoir (which Knox had reviewed in 1951).[20][21] This ultimately led to Spender suing Leavitt and forcing the withdrawal and revision of Leavitt's book.[22][23]

The

Charles Frankel Prize in 1990,[12][24] and in 1992 it selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.[25] Knox's lecture, which he gave the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males",[26] became the basis for Knox's book of the same name, in which Knox defended the continuing relevance of classical Greek culture to modern society.[17]

He died of heart failure on July 22, 2010.[27] He was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery.[28]

Awards and honors

Publications

Books:

Articles and Book Chapters:

Selected introductions

References

  1. ^ a b c Wolfgang Saxon, "Bernard Knox, 95, Classics Scholar, Dies", The New York Times, August 16, 2010.
  2. ^ a b History of the Center for Hellenic Studies at CHS website (retrieved May 26, 2009).
  3. ^
    New York Review of Books
    website (retrieved May 25, 2009).
  4. ^ Nadine Drozan, "Chronicle", The New York Times, March 9, 1992.
  5. ^ Clay, Diskin, "Knox, Bernard MacGregor Walker (1914–2010)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2024. (subscription required)
  6. ^ The Good Comrade, Memoirs of Kate Mangan and Jan Kurzke, International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam.
  7. ^ Knox, Bernard (July 15, 2001). "Premature Anti-Fascist". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  8. ^ a b Hugh Lloyd-Jones, "The Oldest Dead White European Males-book reviews", National Review, June 7, 1993.
  9. G.W. Bowersock, "The Warrior-Humanist: Bernard M.W. Knox (1914–2010). The New Republic
    , September 4, 2010.
  10. ^ Benjamin F. Jones, "Looking for Bernard Knox: Warrior, Ancient and Modern" Archived July 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in War, Literature & the Arts 15:323 (2003).
  11. ^ a b 1976-77: Bernard Knox biography at Previous Winners of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, Cornell University website.
  12. ^ a b c "5 Arts Awards Announced", The New York Times, September 2, 1990.
  13. ^ Barnes Filmography Archived 2009-03-02 at the Wayback Machine at Academic Film Archive website (retrieved May 26, 2009).
  14. ^ Chris Hedges, "Public Lives: A Bridge Between the Classics and the Masses", The New York Times, April 13, 2004. This article quotes Fagles, then age 70, speaking of his relationship with Knox: "'He is very much the professor, and I am still the student,' he said with a smile. 'It is not his fault. I stand in awe of him. I cherish our friendship.'"
  15. ^ Charles McGrath,"Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74", The New York Times, March 29, 2008.
  16. ^ Oliver Taplin, "Bringing Him Back Alive", The New York Times, November 15, 1998.
  17. ^ a b Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Books of The Times; Putting In a Word for Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Etc.", The New York Times, April 29, 1993.
  18. New York Review of Books
    , July 14, 1977.
  19. ^ David Streitfield, "Book Report", The Washington Post, March 11, 1990.
  20. ^ Knox, Bernard (1993-09-12). "War Within and Without". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  21. ISBN 978-0-19-517816-6, p.547, excerpt available at Google Books
    .
  22. ^ James Atlas, "Ideas & Trends; Who Owns a Life? Asks a Poet, When His Is Turned Into Fiction", The New York Times, February 20, 1994.
  23. ^ Stephen Spender, "My Life Is Mine: It Is Not David Leavitt's", The New York Times, September 4, 1994.
  24. ^ a b Charles Frankel Prize Archived May 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine at NEH website (retrieved May 25, 2009).
  25. ^ a b Jefferson Lecturers Archived 2011-10-20 at the Wayback Machine at NEH Website (retrieved May 25, 2009).
  26. ^ Nadine Drozan, "Chronicle", The New York Times, May 6, 1992.
  27. ^ http://chs.harvard.edu/
  28. ^ "Arlington National Cemetery Explorer". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  29. ^ Knox, Bernard (4 September 2010). "Bernard Knox's Jedburgh Operation". The New Republic. The New Republic. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  30. ^ "Bernard M. Knox". www.gf.org. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  31. ^ "George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism". english.cornell.edu. Cornell University Department of English. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  32. ^ "Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox". www.amacad.org. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  33. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
  34. ^ "PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award Winners". pen.org. PEN America. April 28, 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  35. ^ "Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences". amphilsoc.org. American Philosophical Society. Retrieved 7 September 2020.

External links

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