W. Geoffrey Arnott

William Geoffrey Arnott

and other forms of poetry, as well as birds in the ancient world.

Early life and education

Arnott was born in

Academic career

Arnott was a lecturer at King's College, Cambridge from 1960–1963. In 1963 Arnott was appointed a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and in 1968 he took up the chair of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Leeds.

Whilst at Leeds, he was visiting professor at the Universities of British Columbia, Alexandria, Queensland, and Bologna. In 1973, he was a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.^[3] In the academic year 1987–88 he was a visiting fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Arnott retired from his chair in 1991 and became

.

Arnott was one of world's leading experts on Greek

.

Honours

In 1981 he became a member of the Società Italiana per lo Studio dell'Antichità Classica and in 1999 was made a fellow of the British Academy (FBA).^[4]

Personal life

A lifelong hobby was birdwatching. Arnott was a member of his local branch of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and from 1981–84 he was President of the Leeds Birdwatchers Club. Out of this hobby grew an interest in birds in ancient culture, which fed some of his research interests.

Arnott died on 1 December 2010 at the age of 80. He was survived by his wife Vera and by their daughters Alison, Hilary and Rosemary.^[5]

Bibliography

This is a partial bibliography of his work:

• Menander's Dyskolos or The man who didn't like people (English translation; Athlone Press, 1960)
• Menander, Plautus, Terence (New Surveys in the Classics, No. 9. Clarendon Press, 1975)
• Menander (Loeb Classical Library, in 3 volumes, 1979, 1997, 2000)
• Alexis: The fragments: A commentary (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentary, 1996)
• Birds in the ancient world from A to Z (Routledge, 2007)

References