Rediscovering E. R. Dodds: Scholarship, Education, Poetry, and the ParanormalChristopher Stray, Christopher Pelling, Stephen Harrison Rediscovering E. R. Dodds offers the first comprehensive assessment of a remarkable classical scholar, who was also a poet with extensive links to twentieth-century English and Irish literary culture, the friend of Auden and MacNeice. Dodds was born in Northern Ireland, but made his name as Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1936 to 1960, succeeding Gilbert Murray. Before this he taught at Reading and Birmingham, was active in the Association of University Teachers, or AUT (of which he became president), and brought an outsider's perspective to the comfortable and introspective world of Oxford. His famous book The Greeks and the Irrational (1951) remains one of the most distinguished and visionary works of scholarship of its time, though much less well-known is his long and influential involvement with psychic research and his work for the reconstruction of German education after the Second World War. The contributions to this volume seek to shed light on these less explored areas of Dodds' life and his significance as perhaps the last classicist to play a significant role in British literary culture, as well as examining his work across different areas of scholarship, notably Greek tragedy. A group of memoirs - one by his pupil and former literary executor, Donald Russell, and three by younger friends who knew, visited, and looked after Dodds in his last years - complement this portrait of the influential scholar and poet, offering a glimpse of the man behind the legacy. |
Contents
| 1 | |
An Irishman Abroad | 10 |
The Battle for the Irrational Greek Religion 192050 | 36 |
The Rational Irrationalist Dodds and the Paranormal | 88 |
The Greeks and the Irrational | 116 |
The road of excess Dodds and Greek Tragedy | 128 |
Dodds on Plato The Gorgias Edition | 149 |
Doddss Influence on Neoplatonic Studies | 167 |
Dodds Plotinus and Stephen MacKenna | 198 |
The lonely flight of Mind WB Yeats Louis MacNeice and the Metaphysical Poetry of Doddss Scholarship | 210 |
The Deaths of Tragedy The Agamemnon of MacNeice Dodds and Yeats | 228 |
Dodds and Educational Policy for a Defeated Germany | 244 |
Memories of E R Dodds | 264 |
A Bibliography of His Publications | 287 |
| 299 | |
| 333 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus ancient antiquity appeared approach asked become beginning belief called chair Christian classical commentary common continued contribution course critical culture discussion Dodds Dodds's early edition English Euripides evidence experience fact field final German Greek religion human ideas important influence intellectual interest Irrational Journal kind late later lectures less letter living look MacNeice MacNeice's meaning mind Murray mysticism nature Neoplatonism Nilsson notes offered original Oxford passage perhaps period philosophy Plato play Plotinus poet poetry political position present Professor Psychical Research publication published question reason recent references religious remained remarkable Review scholar scholarship seems sense social Society spirit student suggests things thought tradition translation turn understanding University volume writing Yeats