Martin Litchfield West
Martin Litchfield West, was a British philologist and classical scholar.
He wrote on ancient Greek music, Greek tragedy, Greek lyric poetry, the relations between Greece and the ancient Near East, and the connection between shamanism and early ancient Greek religion, including the Orphic tradition. This work stems from material in Akkadian, Phoenician, Hebrew, Hittite, and Ugaritic, as well as Greek and Latin.
In 2001, West produced an edition of Homer's Iliad for Teubner, accompanied by a study of its critical tradition and overall philology, entitled Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad; a further volume on The Making of the Iliad appeared ten years later for Oxford University Press, and one on "The Making of the Odyssey" in 2014.
In addition to the Near-Eastern connection, in 2007 he wrote on the reconstitution of Indo-European culture and poetry, and its influence on Greece, in the book Indo-European Poetry and Myth. In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 2014.
Life and career
Early life and education
Martin Litchfield West was born on 23 September 1937 at Eltham General Hospital, the son of Catherine and Maurice West, a civil engineer. His parents lived at that time in Orpington, but moved in 1939 to Hampton, where his father was appointed resident engineer at the Metropolitan Water Board-operated waterworks. West father's family were from the Home Counties, and his mother's family from Yorkshire and Durham. His paternal grandfather, Robert West, lectured in electrical engineering; his maternal grandfather, John Stainthorpe, was a railwayman from Pickering. Litchfield was the maiden name of his paternal grandmother.At the age of 4, West entered the private preparatory school of Denmead. At 11, he lost a scholarship at Colet Court, but was offered a feepaying place instead. West discovered at Colet his interest in languages and invented at 14 a competitor of Esperanto he labelled 'Unilingua'. In 1951, he won a scholarship to the main school, St Paul's. Excelling at both linguistics and mathematics, he was advanced to the 'Upper Eighth' and sat for a scholarship to Balliol College a year early. His tutors included Donald Russell, Michael Stokes and Russell Meiggs. Among his peers were future Nobel Prize winner Anthony J. Leggett, and future Permanent Secretary Peter Gregson.
Career
West married fellow scholar Stephanie Pickard in 1960 at Nottingham, after meeting her at a lecture given by Eduard Fraenkel at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He became a junior research fellow at St John's College from 1960 to 1963. His doctoral thesis, a commentary on Hesiod's Theogony, won the Conington Prize for the best classical dissertation of the year in 1965, and was edited as a printed book the following year.From the mid-sixties, West took especial interest in the relation of Greek literature to the Orient, and over several decades, culminating in his masterpiece The East Face of Helicon, defended his view that Greek literature derives significant influences and inspiration from Near Eastern literature. He took up a position as tutorial fellow at University College, a position he filled from 1963 to 1974. In 1973 he became the second youngest person to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy, at the age of 35. He obtained a chair at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, which he held from 1974 until 1991, when he became a fellow of All Souls College. West retired formally in 2004, but remained active in All Souls until the end of his life.
Death
West died of a heart attack in 2015 in Oxford at the age of 77. Fellow Oxford academic Armand D'Angour paid tribute to him as "a man of few words in seven languages."Works
West edited and commented Hesiod's Theogony and Work and Days. In 1967, he published with Reinhold Merkelbach Fragmenta Hesiodea, an edition containing other fragmentary poems attributed to Hesiod. He also edited a book on the fragments of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. West edited Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the prestigious Bibliotheca Teubneriana, and the Homeric Hymns for the Loeb Classical Library.Awards and honours
- 2000: Balzan Prize for Classical Antiquity
- 2002: Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies from the British Academy.
- 2007: A book of essays on ancient Greek literature written for West on his 70th birthday
Academic teaching and research history
- Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford
- Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford
- Professor of Greek, University of London
- Fellow and Praelector in Classics, University College, Oxford
- Jr. Woodhouse Research Fellow, St. John's College, Oxford
Selected bibliography
Monographs
- Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971, xv + 256 pp.; translation into Italian, Bologna 1993
- Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts, Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner 1973, 155 pp.; translation into Greek, Athens 1989; translation into Italian, Palermo 1991; translation into Hungarian, Budapest 1999
- Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 1974, ix + 198 pp.
- Immortal Helen: an inaugural lecture delivered on 30 April 1975, London: Bedford College 1975, 18 pp.
- Greek Metre, Oxford 1982, xiv + 208 pp.
- The Orphic Poems, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983, xii + 275 pp. ; translation into Italian, Naples 1993;
- The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985, viii + 193 pp.
- Introduction to Greek Metre, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987, xi + 90 pp.
- Studies in Aeschylus, Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner 1990, x + 406 pp.
- Ancient Greek Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992, xiii + 410 pp ; translation into Greek, Athens 1999
- Die griechische Dichterin: Bild und Rolle, Stuttgart & Leipzig: B.G. Teubner 1996, 48 pp.
- , Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997, xxvi + 662 pp.
- Studies in the text and transmission of the Iliad. München: K.G. Saur 2001 304 pp.
- . Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007 480 pp.
- The Making of the Iliad: Disquisition and Analytical Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011 441 pp.
- The Making of the 'Odyssey', Oxford University Press 2014.
Editions, commentaries and translations
- Hesiod, Theogony, ed. with prolegomena and commentary by M. L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1966, xiii + 459 pp.
- Fragmenta Hesiodea, ed.: R. Merkelbach et M. L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1967, 236 pp.
- Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. 1 : Archilochus. Hipponax. Theognidea, ed. M. L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971, revised edition 1989, xvi + 256
- Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. 2 : Callinus. Mimnermus. Semonides. Solon. Tyrtaeus. Minora adespota, ed. M. L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1972, revised edition 1992 x + 246 pp.
- Sing me, goddess. Being the first recitation of Homer's Iliad, translated by Martin West, London: Duckworth 1971, 43 pp.
- Theognidis et Phocylidis fragmenta et adespota quaedam gnomica, ed. M. L. West, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1978, iv + 49 pp.
- Hesiod, Works and Days, ed. with prolegomena and commentary by M.L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978, xiii + 399 pp.
- Delectus ex Iambis et Elegis Graecis, ed. M. L. West, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980, ix + 295 pp.
- Carmina Anacreontea, edidit Martin L. West, Leipzig: Teubner 1984, xxvi + 64 pp.; corrected reprint with one page of Addenda, 1993
- Euripides, Orestes, ed. with transl. and commentary by M. L. West, Warminster: Aris & Phillips 1987, ix + 297 pp.
- Hesiod, Theogony, and Works and Days, transl. and with an introduction by M. L. West, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988, xxv + 79 pp.
- Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, recensuit Martin L. West, Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner 1990, lxxxv + 508 pp.
- Greek Lyric Poetry. The poems and fragments of the Greek iambic, elegiac, and melic poets down to 450 B.C., Oxford: Oxford university Press 1993, xxv + 213 pp.
- Homeri Ilias. Volumen prius rhapsodias I-XII continens, recensuit Martin L. West, Stuttgart & Leipzig: B.G. Teubner 1998, lxii + 372 pp.
- Homeri Ilias. Volumen alterum rhapsodias XIII-XXIV continens, recensuit Martin L. West, K. G. Saur: Leipzig & Munich 2000, vii + 396 pp.
- Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, edited and translated by Martin L. West. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 2003
- Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, edited and translated by Martin L. West. London Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 2003
- Barrett, W. S., Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers, ed. M. L. West : papers dealing with Stesichorus, Pindar, Bacchylides and Euripides
- The Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran, Leiden, 2010.
- Homerus, Odyssea, ed. M. L. West,, De Gruyter: Berlin 2017
Articles