Don Paul Fowler

Don Paul Fowler ( born May 21, 1953 in Birmingham, † October 15, 1999 in Oxford ) was an English classical scholar.

Life

Fowler came from a humble background in Birmingham where he attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. After completing his studies at Christ Church College in Oxford Fowler was first Lecturer in Classics at Magdalen College (1976-1977) and then Dyson Junior Research Fellow in Greek Culture at Balliol College (1978-1980) to the early age of 28 years as a Fellow to be appointed and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College (Oxford) and at the same time the post of University Lecturer in Greek and Latin Literature at Oxford University to provide ( 1981-1999 ). Fowler established numerous contacts with classical scholars in North America and Europe. The Italian he mastered so well that he could speak freely in front of audiences in this language. In this way he became an important intermediary between Italian and British Latin Studies in the 1980s. In particular, with Gian Biagio Conte and Alessandro Barchiesi and the Italian journal Materiali e discussioni per l' analisi dei testi classici he was closely associated. Fowler was also a member of the editorial boards of other journals ( Journal of Roman Studies, among others and Arachnion ).

Fowler was married since 1977 with the Classicist Peta Fowler (nee Moon ) and has a daughter Sophia.

Work

Although Fowler has left no monograph at his untimely death, he is one of the outstanding Latinist of his generation because of his intellectual promiscuity and originality. He was one of the pioneers of the application of modern literary theory and information technology in the classics. His specialty in Latin literature was the Roman Epicureanism, the work of Lucretius and Virgil, topics on which Fowler wrote as other numerous articles and contributions. A book on Lucretius is no more appeared as the long awaited ' book for the book " with the provisional title Unrolling the Text: books and readers in classical Latin poetry, which deals with the history of book role in ancient times and its role in the ancient seal should be concerned. However, some comment has been published for the second book of Lucretius from his wife. In addition, Fowler wrote from 1986 to 1993 the Subject Reviews in Latin Literature in the journal Greece and Rome and was responsible with his wife Peta in the field of Latin literature in the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (see especially the entries Lucretius, Virgil and Literary Theory and the Classics ). In literary theory, he has worked primarily for irony, for focalization, in conclusion ( engl. closure ) and intertextuality.

Publications (selection)

Comment

• Lucretius on atomic motion. A commentary on De rerum natura book two, lines 1-332. Edited by Peta Fowler, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. ISBN 0-19-924358-1

Editorial Boards

• (Ed., with Efrossini Spentzou ): Cultivating the Muse: Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical Literature. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-924004-3.
• (Ed., with DH Roberts and FM Dunn): Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature. Princeton 1997. ISBN 0-691-04452- X. Review by: Marilyn B. Skinner, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review, online

Collection of essays

• Roman constructions. Readings in postmodern Latin. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-815309-0.

Papers

• The Didactic Plot, in: Matrices of genre. Authors, canons, and society. Edited Dirk Obbink and Mary Depew ( Center for Hellenic Studies, colloquia, 4). Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA et al 2000, ISBN 0-674-00338-1.
• Epic in the Middle of the Wood: Mise en Abyme in the Nisus and Euryalus episode, in: Intratextuality. Greek and Roman Textual Relations. Edited by Alison Sharrock and Helen Morales. Oxford 2000, 89-113.
• From epic to Cosmos: Lucretius, Ovid, and the Poetics of segmentation, in: Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy- Fifth Birthday. Edited by Doreen Innes, Harry Hine and Christopher Pelling. Oxford 1995, 3-18.
• Deviant focalisation in Virgil 's Aeneid, in: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 36 (1990 ) 42-63.
• Lucretius and Politics. In: Philosophia Togata. Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society. Edited by Miriam Griffin and Jonathan Barnes. Oxford, 1989, 120-150.
• First Thoughts on Closure: Problems and Prospects, in: Materiali e discussioni per l' analisi dei testi classici 22 (2011) 75-122.

Others

• Titus Lucretius Carus, On the nature of the universe. Translated by Sir Ronald Melville, introduction by Don and Peta Fowler. Oxford University Press, New York 1999.
• Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow, revised by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London 1994 ( review: Peter Davis, Scholia Reviews ns 5 (1996 ) 3)