William Geoffrey Arnott FB

Background

Arnott was born in Bury, Lancashire, and attended Bury Grammar School from 1940 to 1947.

Education

He studied classics at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in 1952 with a first class Bachelor (converted as usual to an Oxbridge Master of Arts). In 1960, he received a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, with a dissertation on the comic poet Alexis.

Career

He was received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge, and taught at the University of Leeds for most of his career. Arnott was a lecturer at King"s College, Cambridge from 1960–1963. This was followed by a senior lecturership at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1963–1967.

In 1968, Arnott took up the chair of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Leeds.

In 1991, he retired from the chair and became a professor emeritus. While at Leeds, he was visiting professor at the Universities of British Columbia, Alexandria, Queensland, and Bologna.

In 1973, he was a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In the academic year 1987-1988 he was a visiting fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Arnott was one of world"s leading experts on Greek comic poetry, the work of the likes of Alexis and Menander.

The exhaustive edition of the fragments of Alexis goes back to Arnott"s dissertation. From 1979 to 2000 he edited the now authoritative complete edition, plus notes and translation, of the comedies of Menander, whose works were extensive, but also difficult to decipher and classify until 20th century papyrus discoveries.

Achievements

• While an undergraduate at Pembroke he won the Porson Prize for Greek verse.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z

    (Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z gathers together t...)

  • Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z by W. Geoffrey Arnott (2007-09-24)
  • Menander, Plautus and Terence (New Surveys in the Classics S)
  • Menander, Plautus, Terence (Greece & Rome)

Membership

In 1981 he became a member of the Società Italiana per lo Studio dell"Antichità Classica, and in 1999 was made a fellow of the British Academy.