Anne Pippin Burnett


Anne Pippin Burnett was an American classical scholar and academic who specialised in Greek literature, especially tragedy and the lyric poetry of the archaic and early classical periods.

Career

She earned her BA from Swarthmore College in 1946 and followed this with an MA in 1947 at Columbia University. In 1953 Anne gained her PhD from Berkeley. She subsequently taught at Vassar College, and as an editor and translator for the publishing house Hachette. She joined the University of Chicago, in 1961 as assistant professor, becoming a professor in 1970. She was chairman of the Department of Classical Languages and Literatures from 1969 to 1973, and retired as Professor Emerita in 1992.
Burnett's research and writing focused on Greek revenge tragedies, which she argued should be seen in the context of their times and not through the lens of contemporary social and moral views, and on poets including Pindar, Archilochus, Alcaeus, and Sappho.
She received many academic awards during her career including a Martin Lecture at Oberlin College in 1978, George B. Walsh Lecture at Chicago, Sather Professorship at Berkley, and a Guggenheim fellowship in 1981.

Death

Anne Pippin Burnett died on April 22, 2017 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, aged 91. She was predeceased by her husband Virgil Burnett, an American-born naturalized Canadian citizen. He was an artist and writer, whom she had wed on 16 February 1961. She is survived by their two daughters, Maud Burnett McInerney and Melissa Gromoff, and three grandchildren.

Selected publications