Frederick Ahl
Encyclopedia
Frederick M. Ahl is a professor of classics
and comparative literature
at Cornell University
He is known for his work in Greek and Roman epic and drama, and the intellectual history
of Greece and Rome, as well as for translations of tragedy and Latin epic.
, the University of Texas at Austin
and the University of Utah
before joining the Cornell faculty in 1971. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching from Cornell in 1977, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1989-90 and was a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in 1996. He has served as director of Cornell Abroad in Greece.
Ahl is active in theater in Ithaca, including Cornell Savoyards' Gilbert and Sullivan
productions.
In his book Sophocles' Oedipus (1991), Ahl argues that the Oedipus
of Sophocles
’ play is not actually guilty. Oedipus' conclusion that he is guilty is not actually confirmed by the information in the play itself and that the audience's belief in Oedipus' guilt is based on the audience's outside knowledge of the myth.
In 2007, Ahl published a translation of Virgil
's Aeneid
into English hexameter, with a paperback edition in Summer 2008. He is the editor of the series of translations under the rubric "Masters of Latin Literature."
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
and comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
He is known for his work in Greek and Roman epic and drama, and the intellectual history
Intellectual history
Note: this article concerns the discipline of intellectual history, and not its object, the whole span of human thought since the invention of writing. For clarifications about the latter topic, please consult the writings of the intellectual historians listed here and entries on individual...
of Greece and Rome, as well as for translations of tragedy and Latin epic.
Life and career
Ahl studied classics at Cambridge University, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees, and at the University of Texas, where he received his doctorate. He taught at the Texas Military Institute, Trinity UniversityTrinity University (Texas)
Trinity University is a private, independent, primarily undergraduate, university in San Antonio, Texas. Its campus is located in the Monte Vista Historic District and adjacent to Brackenridge Park....
, the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
and the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
before joining the Cornell faculty in 1971. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching from Cornell in 1977, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1989-90 and was a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in 1996. He has served as director of Cornell Abroad in Greece.
Ahl is active in theater in Ithaca, including Cornell Savoyards' Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
productions.
Works
In addition to his several books, Ahl has published articles on topics including ancient Greek music, Homeric narrative, rhetoric in antiquity, and Latin poetry of the Roman imperial period.In his book Sophocles' Oedipus (1991), Ahl argues that the Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
of Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
’ play is not actually guilty. Oedipus' conclusion that he is guilty is not actually confirmed by the information in the play itself and that the audience's belief in Oedipus' guilt is based on the audience's outside knowledge of the myth.
In 2007, Ahl published a translation of Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
into English hexameter, with a paperback edition in Summer 2008. He is the editor of the series of translations under the rubric "Masters of Latin Literature."
Translations
- Phaedra (1986) ISBN 0801494338
- Trojan Women (1986) ISBN 0801494311
- Medea (1986) ISBN 080149432X
- Aeneid (2007), with Elaine FanthamElaine FanthamElaine Fantham is a British classicist. She was Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton University from 1986 to 1999. She was chair of the Department of Classics at Princeton from 1989 to 1992 and the president of the American Philological Association for 2004....
ISBN 0192832069
Scholarship and criticism
- Lucan: An Introduction (1975) ISBN 0801408377
- Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (1985) ISBN 0801417627
- Sophocles' Oedipus: Evidence and Self Conviction (1991) ISBN 0801425581 (hardcover), ISBN 0801499291 (paperback)
- Seneca: Three Tragedies;
- Statius' Thebaid: A Reconsideration (Cornell University Press, 1996;
- The Odyssey Re-Formed, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (1996), with Hanna Roisman
- Two Faces of Oedipus: Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus and Seneca's Oedipus
- "The rider and the horse: poetry and politics in Roman poetry from Horace to Statius", in Joseph Vogt, ed.Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Rome: de Gruyter) 1972, pp 40–111.