Brooks Otis (June 10, 1908 – July 26, 1977) was an American scholar of
Classical languages and literature. Born in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, he graduated from
Harvard in 1929, took the M.A. in 1930, and received the Ph.D. in 1935. Otis taught at
Hobart College from 1935 to 1957, then at
American University of Beirut for one year before accepting a position at
Stanford University as Professor of Classics. In 1970 he moved to the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
where he followed
T. Robert S. Broughton as
George L. Paddison Professor of Latin. While at Stanford Otis was one of the founders of the
Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, Italy, in 1965. He was a member of the
Guild of Scholars of The Episcopal Church.
Otis was known for some of the most concise and penetrating critical essays written on classical literature. His first book, published at the age of 55, was ''Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry'' (1963),
which was immediately recognized as a classic.
[ Ward W. Briggs, Jr., Foreword to Brooks Otis, ''Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry''. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995, pp. vii - xiii.] He also wrote ''Ovid as an Epic Poet'' (1966)
and the posthumous ''Cosmos and Tragedy: An Essay on the Meaning of Aeschylus'' (1981), edited with notes and a preface by
E. Christian Kopff),
which was part of a long manuscript left unfinished at his death, entitled "The Transcendence of Tragedy".
References
External links
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1908 births
1977 deaths
American classical scholars
Harvard University alumni
Scholars of Latin literature
Classical scholars of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Linguists from the United States
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