Robert J. Ball
Most eloquent among the many sons of Scotland, educated at Glasgow and Oxford, you have got for the final forty years enriched the world of classical letters with the richness of your scholarship. You might have been without delay a assist and an decoration to humane studying on this, your adopted nation. Generations of Columbia college students can testify to the scope of your erudition and the precision of your wit. In almost a rating of books – doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis – you have got charted the enduring varieties and themes of literature, with a spirit as indefatigable as it’s passionate. A Varro in studying, a Cicero in eloquence, you haven’t solely defended the vitality and beauty of the classical custom, you have got additionally embodied it.
So spoke President William McGill at Columbia College’s 1977 graduation as he awarded a D.Litt. to Gilbert Highet (1906–78), regarded in his day as essentially the most celebrated Classical scholar in America. In an period with out the web or podcasts or YouTube, Highet turned a family title, together with his distinctive voice reaching a worldwide viewers by his books and lectures, heard even over the airwaves.
Movie star standing appeared suited to (and even destined for) Highet, a local of Glasgow, who, as a youthful prodigy, dazzled his academics at Hillhead Excessive College. He attended Glasgow College on scholarships (1925–8), the place he earned his M.A. (the primary diploma out there, since Glasgow doesn’t confer a B.A.), and Balliol, Oxford (1929–32), the place he earned his B.A. At Balliol, he studied below three nice academics – Cyril Bailey, Maurice Bowra, and Gilbert Murray – who all contributed to his development as a Classicist and to his future efficiency as a trainer and a lecturer. He taught at St John’s, Oxford (1933–7) as Fellow and Tutor, the place he acquired a wonderful status within the classroom and wrote two textbooks: An Define of Homer (1935) and Starting Latin (1938). Throughout his ultimate yr at St John’s, Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia College, supplied him the place of Visiting Affiliate for 1937–8, extending the provide allegedly on the suggestion of Bowra. Highet seemed ahead to residing in America, troubled by the inflexible class system in England and by what he perceived as an unconcern at Oxford dinner events and excessive tables over the rise of Adolf Hitler. Inside one yr of accepting the short-term appointment at Columbia, Highet turned a full Professor of Greek and Latin with tenure – an incredible achievement in these days for a person simply turning 32.
As Highet’s superstar was taking off in America, he was known as as much as serve within the British Military throughout World Battle II, on depart from Columbia from 1941 to 1946. Below Sir William Stephenson, Director of British Safety Coordination for the Western Hemisphere, he served within the British Mission to america and within the British Intelligence Heart in New York. Whereas executing many secret missions, he drew up psychological profiles of such Nazi leaders as Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Himmler, which drew particularly on his broad information of the Roman emperors. Whereas on obligation within the British Zone of Occupation in Berlin, he entered the smoldering stays of Hitler’s bunker and ultimately turned liable for serving to to get well the gold reserves hidden by the Nazis. In Berlin, attending Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann, he risked arrest by by accident sitting in a stall reserved for a Russian common and his girlfriend, the place the final repeatedly glowered at him. On the finish of the struggle, he attended the Nuremberg trials, the place he noticed the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany, whom he thought to be the embodiment of pure evil, face the extreme justice of their conquerors. He would refer in a few of his books to the atrocities dedicated by the Nazis, particularly Hitler’s perpetration of the Holocaust, and would (I dare say) categorical his outrage at the moment over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Highet’s educational superstar skyrocketed upon his return to Columbia, when he devoted all his power to educating and to writing concerning the nice Classical works. When he entered the classroom, his college students sensed that the curtain was going up on a Broadway play and in contrast him to such distinguished award-winning actors as Laurence Olivier and John Houseman. He would stroll backwards and forwards, even sing as an instance a degree, or slip into his Scottish burr to conclude an argument, as he did when he imitated a minister preaching hellfire and damnation to his congregation. He wielded a window-pole (a device used at the moment) to mimic a Roman legionnaire, or, impersonating Marius on the gates of Rome, he would crouch down and spring throughout the ground to battle his rival Sulla. Along with his Scottish-English brogue and his riveting, rapid-fire supply, he would maintain his college students spellbound via his highly effective lectures, sensible of their group and brimming with vital perception. The impressed anecdotes, the poignant pauses, and the sudden bursts of laughter all contributed to a tour de drive that didn’t merely beguile his college students however offered them with a strong basis for studying. Though introduced in a extremely theatrical method, his humane type of educating concerned a rigorous examination of a Classical writer and the qualities that made that writer memorable and worthy of studying.
Highet achieved superstar standing not merely from his legendary efficiency on the campus however from his astounding visibility earlier than the final educated public. He served as chief literary critic for Harper’s Journal (1952–4), reviewing new books each month on varied topics, together with his vary mirrored within the title of his column, which modified with each subject. As chair of the editorial advisory board for Horizon (1958–77), he wrote many articles, together with his translation (preserving the unique meters) of Menander’s newly found Dyscolus (“The Grumpy Outdated Man”). He served on the board of judges for the Ebook of the Month Membership (1954–78), for which he printed roughly 400 e book critiques on nice literature, music, and artwork in Ebook of the Month Membership Information. He charmed most of the people together with his weekly radio program “Individuals, Locations, and Books” (1952–9), finally carried by over 300 radio stations within the USA and Canada, in addition to by the BBC and Voice of America. On 24 March 1968, he introduced a lecture for CBS Tv’s Digicam Three on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s portray The Peasant Marriage ceremony (1567), claiming to have recognized in it the elusive bridegroom. Whereas retaining his college students on the sting of their seats in packed lecture rooms, he captivated the literary-minded layperson together with his witty and incisive articles and lectures on Classical and up to date topics.
Even Highet’s books on Classical topics contributed to his superstar, since he aimed most of them not solely at students but additionally on the common educated public. The Classical Custom (1949), his most well-known work, gives a sweeping have a look at the Greek and Roman influences on Western literature from the decline of Classical civilization to the mid-20th century. In Juvenal the Satirist (1954), his most controversial e book, he tries to reconstruct Juvenal’s life, analyzes every of his sixteen satires, and traces their reception from the early Roman Empire to trendy instances. Poets in a Panorama (1957), directed primarily at a common viewers, considers seven Roman poets by analyzing varied elements of their poetry towards a backdrop of the locations in Italy by which they lived. In The Anatomy of Satire (1962), Highet examines satire from Classical antiquity to the 20th century inside the context of what he regards as its three fundamental patterns: monologue, parody, and narrative. The Speeches in Vergil’s Aeneid (1972), directed solely at a scholarly viewers, examines all of the speeches in Vergil’s epic in six rigorously documented chapters and 7 rigorously organized appendices. Highet’s superstar, nevertheless, didn’t come and not using a worth, bringing with it opposed criticism from those that, maybe jealous of his astonishing achievements, accused him of selling “middlebrow” tradition.
Sporting his superstar effectively, Highet additionally took satisfaction within the superstar of his spouse, spy novelist Helen MacInnes (that they had met as college students at Glasgow College). Highet totally supported the profession of his proficient partner, brazenly admitted that she had develop into extra well-known than he, and even devoted one in every of his radio lectures to his ideas on being married to a author. Highet and MacInnes dropped at America’s literary scene what Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne dropped at America’s theatrical scene – two outstanding {couples} who had been celebrated on each side of the Atlantic. At a time when male teachers typically handled their wives as home drones, Highet inspired his spouse to jot down her books and supported mature, hardworking feminine graduate college students resembling Froma Zeitlin. Professor Emerita at Princeton, Zeitlin not too long ago shared with me her heat correspondence with Highet, confirming how he impressed her as a doctoral candidate and have become the sponsor of her dissertation. Moreover, Highet, as chair of Classics, invited Alan and Averil Cameron to show at Columbia for the 1967–8 educational yr – a topic I not too long ago mentioned with Averil, Professor Emerita at Oxford. Impressed by articles Alan and Averil had printed, Highet once more supported a feminine Classical scholar on the rise, though his invitation raised a query that will don’t have any place within the hiring course of at the moment.
Having achieved his superstar in an period that lacked the know-how out there at the moment, Highet paved the way in which for Classicists to get pleasure from higher visibility than he did. Classicists resembling Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, Edith Corridor, Tom Holland, and Daniel Mendelsohn have carried the torch ahead in an inspiring effort to carry Classical tradition to a broad common lay viewers. With their stimulating shows on the lecture circuit, in widely-read publications, and on the ever-expanding web, at the moment’s Classicists have exploited 21st-century know-how to meet that objective. Movie star at the moment, nevertheless, doesn’t come with out one paying much less of a worth (maybe much more of a worth) than Highet did, since one’s detractors are additionally exploiting the know-how to serve their very own agenda. Cambridge’s Mary Beard, essentially the most celebrated and sought-after Classicist of this era, has develop into maybe as controversial as Highet, and for causes typically expressed through pseudonymous social media. Though Highet and Beard have each been known as colonialists (a spiteful and extremely subjective accusation), I favor to consider them as champions of the Classical spirit and ambassadors of Classical civilization. I’d additionally like to consider Beard and the 4 Classicists named above as seeing Highet as a predecessor who superior the position of the general public mental and pioneered a difficult path for others to observe.
Highet’s superstar lives on within the many publications about him or referring to him which have steadily appeared over the greater than 4 a long time since his demise. I not too long ago discovered an article about Highet written by the President Emeritus of the Nationwide College of Pure Medication, who was directing his views on educating at an viewers of naturopathic physicians. I additionally not too long ago got here throughout one other article about Highet by a revered London-based writer, broadcaster, and non-residential Fellow at Harvard’s Hutchins Heart for African and African American Analysis. One additionally finds a touching tribute to Highet within the very title of the e book assessment known as “The Incomparable Gilbert Highet,” by a Biblicist with a sustained analysis curiosity within the historical past of Classical scholarship. Highet himself asserted {that a} reviewer ought to try to intensify the constructive, to sympathize with an writer’s aspirations fairly than demean a e book for not being the e book the reviewer would have written. Though Highet’s books acquired principally constructive critiques, they’d often obtain a detrimental assessment, which, as Highet informed his graduate college students, he revered if the assessment appeared honest and balanced. But when the assessment accentuated the detrimental and disregarded the writer’s aspirations, he asserted (justifiably, for my part) that it revealed a mean-spiritedness, a conspicuous flaw within the character of the reviewer.
In any case, I’ll take the Highet highway (to playfully echo a well-known Scottish music) in my unwavering zeal to maintain alive the flame of the primary superstar Classicist, a really extraordinary trainer and scholar. Past his love for educating and writing, Highet pursued a lifelong ardour for studying, which fueled his educating – a ardour one might discover within the passage reproduced right here, projecting values that also ring true:
The pleasures of studying are certainly pleasures. However actually the phrase ought to be modified. The true title is happiness. There are three different kinds of happiness, superior to that of studying: the happiness of affection fulfilled; the happiness of serving mankind; and the happiness of creation. Although it’s beneath these, studying remains to be an excellent happiness, and generally is a assist towards the attainment of these others; and it’s a vital a part of an entire life. No learner has ever discovered that he ran wanting topics to discover. However many individuals who prevented studying, or deserted it, discover that life is drained dry. They spend thirty years in a membership chair wanting glumly out on the sand and the ocean; in a lodge lounge gossiping concerning the different inmates; in a porch swing ready for someone to drive down the highway. However that’s not easy methods to stay. The chief intention of schooling is to point out you, after you make a livelihood, easy methods to get pleasure from residing; and you may stay longest and greatest and most rewardingly by attaining and preserving the happiness of studying.
Robert J. Ball, Professor Emeritus of Classics on the College of Hawaii and a recipient of excellence in educating awards from the College of Hawaii and from the American Philological Affiliation (now the Society for Classical Research), has printed a e book on Tibullus’ elegies, first-year and second-year Latin textbooks, and most not too long ago the third installment of a e book trilogy on Gilbert Highet, his inspirational mentor throughout his doctoral research at Columbia College.
Additional Studying
Robert J. Ball, The Classical Papers of Gilbert Highet (Columbia UP, New York, 1983). Accommodates 30 articles by Highet – six on Greek literature, eighteen on Latin literature, and 6 on the Classical custom (three beforehand unpublished, one from every of the above classes) – and bibliographies of publications by him and about him.
Robert J. Ball, The Unpublished Lectures of Gilbert Highet (Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 1998). Accommodates 30 lectures by Highet – six on Greek literature, six on Latin literature, and eighteen on the Classical custom (all beforehand unpublished) – together with “Dio Chrysostom,” the Loeb Classical Lecture Highet delivered in 1975 at Harvard.
Robert J. Ball, The Classical Legacy of Gilbert Highet: An In-Depth Retrospect (Lockwood Press, Atlanta, GA, 2021). A totally documented examination of Highet’s profession as a trainer and scholar, which features a assessment of his books that exhibit a powerful Classical content material and totally up to date bibliographies of publications by him and about him.
For a current Antigone article concerning the Oxford Classics neighborhood by which Highet studied, see this piece.
