Willem Canter

Willem Canter, also William Canter, (* 1542 in Leeuwarden and Utrecht, † 1575 in Leuven ) was a Dutch philologist, who was one of the first Hellenist of his country of importance. His reflections on the philosophy Edition were to the 19th century of significant influence.

Willem Canter came from a respected Frisian family that enabled him to live in prosperity, he should spend as a private scholar without economic constraints. From Georgius Macropedius he was taught early on in the old languages ​​and showed a high mastery. Already at the age of 12 he began his studies in 1554 at the University of Louvain, in 1560 he moved to the University of Paris, where he met Jean Joseph Justus Scaliger and Dorat. Travels took him to Germany and especially to Italy, where he met various scholars and formed friendships in part. Because of the Wars of Religion and the related riots in Paris in 1562, he traveled to Italy, where he lived until 1563. After his return he settled in his native Netherlands, where he had already died of tuberculosis at the age of 33 years.

Canter differed by his outstanding knowledge of ancient Greek by most Dutch philologists of his time, who were more likely to face the majority of the Latin Language. He stood in the tradition of his French teacher. He used his language skills to make various Greek works into Latin accessible to Translate and thus a larger number of Dutch researchers. With Scaliger he issued text-critical editions of Lycophron of Chalcis and Athenaeus, on issues of tragedians, he worked alone. They appeared in part only posthumously: 1571 Euripides, Sophocles 1579 and 1580 Aeschylus. Have been used for a long time and were the starting point of the later editions of her work of these authors. He also dealt with the scientific works, inquired about the metric and determined the Korresponsionen the choral songs. In the Latin Language researched Canter in particular to Propertius and Cicero. As with his spending Greek authors he dealt in the notae with text-critical and philological issues and also took notes of older authors. To his translation Greek orator Aelius Aristides as Gorgias Leontinoi, Andokides and Lysias into Latin, he was in an annex. In this Ratio emendandi he put his vision of philosophy Edition dar. It should be Canters important work. 1566 the writing was first published in Basel and was subsequently published as a separate script again and again until the 19th century. They were used as Wilhelm Dindorf, Johan Nicolai Madvig and Eduard Fraenkel. Canter defined in his essay criteria of manuscript description and systematically defined the common errors in manuscripts.