Edgar Lobel
Edgar Lobel | |
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Born | Queen's College, Oxford, Bodleian Library | 24 December 1888
Edgar Lobel (24 December 1888 – 7 July 1982) was a Romanian-British
Early life and education
Lobel was born in
Academic career and later life
Before papyri, Lobel’s elective field of research was Greek palaeography. In 1933, he published a book on the manuscripts of Aristotle’s Poetics.
His edition of Sappho and Alcaeus, Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta (co-edited with Denys Page), appeared in 1955, and in the same year Lobel declined to be knighted.[6]
Lobel is best known for having been the general editor of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri from 1941 to 1972; as such he supervised the editing and publishing of twenty-two volumes of the series, from. vol. XVIII to XXIX, which contain more than 700 papyri and gave significant contributions to classical philology and knowledge of Ancient Greek literature—most notably Callimachus, Sappho and Alcaeus.
Lobel never loved teaching: when his college (Queen's) forced him to held a class, he put his lesson on Saturday afternoon.[7][8] Also, he apparently didn't like papyri per se—instead, he is reported to have said "the poets I like happen to have been transmitted in this way".[8] He also met Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, the most influent German classical scholar of the 20th century, but didn't like him, nor he did like Wilamowitz's favourite author, Euripides: "Euripides, like Wilamowitz, knew no Greek!".[9]
After the Second World War, he composed a funerary epigram in memory of The Queen's College's students fallen during the war. It reads:
Τούτων τοιούτων τε κατ' αἰθέρα καὶ κατὰ πόντον / καὶ κατὰ γῆν ἀρετὴ σῶσε φανεῖσα πάτραν. / πὰρ δ' ἥβην ἐβάλοντο καὶ ἐς τέλος ὤπασε δαίμων / τοῖς μὲν νόστον ἔχειν, τοῖσι δὲ τήνδε λίθος.
— Edgar Lobel
and translates into:[10]
The virtue of these men and others of the same kind, displayed in the skies, at sea and on earth, saved their homeland. They risked their youth, and God fulfilled for some of them the fate of returning home and for the others of having this stone.
Publications
The Oxryhynchus Papyri
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XVIII [2157-2207] (London, 1941)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XIX [2208-2244] (London, 1948)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XX [2245-2287] (London, 1952)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXI [2288-2308] (London, 1951)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXII [2309-2353] (London, 1954)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIII [2354-2382] (London, 1956)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIV [2383-2425] (London, 1957)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXV [2426-2437] (London, 1959)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVI [2438-2451] (London, 1961)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVII [2452-2480] (London, 1962)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVIII [2481-2505] (London, 1962)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIX [2506] (London, 1963)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXX [2507-2530] (London, 1964)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXI [2531-2616] (London, 1966)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXII [2617-2653] (London, 1967)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIII [2654-2682] (London, 1968)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIV [2683-2732] (London, 1968)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXV [2733-2744] (London, 1968)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVI [2745-2800] (London, 1970)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVII [2801-2823] (London, 1971)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVIII [2824-2877] (London, 1971)
- The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIX [2878-2891] (London, 1972)
Some of these volumes were edited by other scholars (like vol. XXIX, by Sir Denys Page), but Lobel was the general editor of the series. While Vols. XXVIII-XX made significant contributions to our knowledge of Callimachus' works, Lobel, unlike Grenfell and Hunt, ignored non-literary papyri, which make up the majority of material.[11]
Critical editions
- Σαπφοῦς μέλη: The Fragments of the Lyrical Poems of Sappho (Oxford, 1925)
- Ἀλκαίου μέλη: The Fragments of the Lyrical Poems of Alcaeus (Oxford, 1927)
- (with D. Page) Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (Oxford, 1955)
Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (commonly referred in editions as Lobel-Page or L.-P.) is still one of the two standard editions of Sappho and Alcaeus, the other being E.-M. Voigt (ed.), Sappho et Alcaeus. Fragmenta (Amsterdam 1971). Lobel and Page’s edition, along with Voigt’s, set the standard text for Sappho and Alcaeus’ fragments and no other critical edition of the Lesbian poets had been published until 2021, when Camillo Neri completed his edition of Sappho (critical text with Italian translation and extensive commentary; includes recently—2004, 2014—discovered fragments unknown to both Lobel-Page and Voigt).[12]
Also, Lobel, like Paul Maas, helped Rudolf Pfeiffer with his edition of Callimachus' works and fragments (2 vols., Oxford 1949–1953).
Select occasional publications
- Greek Manuscripts of Aristotle's Poetics (London, 1933)
References
- ^ Turner (1983, p. 276)
- Higher Broughton in 1889, and this year is repeated at the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project website Archived 16 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Lloyd-Jones (2004)
- ^ Lloyd-Jones (1991, p. 213), Turner (1983, p. 276)
- ^ a b c d Turner (1983, p. 276), Lloyd-Jones (2004)
- ^ "The refuseniks and the honours they turned down", The Times, 21 December 2003
- ^ Turner (1983).
- ^ ISBN 9788860011336.
- ISBN 9780226391922.
- ^ The translation is from Weise, Stefan (2022). "Greek Inscription at The Queen's College, Oxford [1951]". In Pontani, Filippomaria; Weise, Stefan (eds.). The Hellenizing Muse. Trends in Classics—Pahways to Reception 6. Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 553–554.
- ^ Lehnus 2007, p. 102.
- ^ Saffo (2021). Neri, Camillo (ed.). Testimonianze e Frammenti. Texte und Kommentare 68. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter.
Bibliography
- Lehnus, L. (2010), "Edgar Lobel", in Capasso, M. (ed.), Hermae: Scholars and Scholarship in Papyrology, vol. II, Pisa & Rome, ISBN 9788862273374).
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 0389209678).
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Lloyd-Jones, H. (2004), "Lobel, Edgar (1888–1982)]", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- McGuinness, Brian (16 December 1993), "Obituary: Mary Lobel", The Independent
- ISBN 0198148410).
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Turner, E.G. (1983), "Edgar Lobel †", Gnomon, 55 (3): 275–80, JSTOR 27688386.
External links
- Edgar Lobel Archived 16 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine at the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project website