Martin Litchfield West
Martin Litchfield West, OM FBA (23 September 1937 – 13 July 2015) was a British philologist and classical scholar.[1] In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 2014.[2]
West 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. West also studied the reconstitution of Indo-European mythology and poetry and its influence on Ancient Greece, notably in the 2007 book Indo-European Poetry and Myth (IEPM).
West also produced an edition of Homer's Iliad for the Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 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, and one on The Making of the Odyssey was published in 2014.
Life and career[edit]
Early life and education[edit]
Martin Litchfield West was born on 23 September 1937 at Eltham General Hospital (Eltham, London), the first child of Catherine (née Baker Stainthorpe) and Maurice Charles West, a civil engineer. His younger sister, Jennifer Lesley West (now Bywaters) was born shortly after the war in 1947. 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.[3] 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.[3][4]
Aged four, West entered the private preparatory school of Denmead. At 11, he lost a scholarship at Colet Court (now St Paul's Juniors), 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'.[5] 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.[6]
Works[edit]
West edited and commented Hesiod's Theogony and Works 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.[12] West edited Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the Bibliotheca Teubneriana, and the Homeric Hymns for the Loeb Classical Library.[15]
West was a DPhil and DLitt of Oxford University, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, a Corresponding Member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften, Göttingen, and a Member of the Academia Europaea, London. HM The Queen appointed him a Member of the Order of Merit (OM) in the 2014 New Year Honours.[2][18]