Brooks Otis (June 10, 1908 – July 26, 1977) was an American classicist. Born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, he graduated from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

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 The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

for one year before accepting a position at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

as Professor of Classics. In 1970 he moved to the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

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

* * 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 {{US-linguist-stub