Classicists who gained acknowledgment outside the field
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Throughout the history of the Western world, many classicists have gone on to gain acknowledgment outside the field.
- George Berkeley, philosopher, read Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was also Junior Lecturer in Greek
- John Buchan, writer and politician, who served as Governor General of Canada.
- Sir James George Frazer, poet and anthropologist
- William Ewart Gladstone, 19th century British Prime Minister, studied classics at Oxford University
- A.E. Housman, best known to the public as a poet and the author of A Shropshire Lad, was the most accomplished (and feared) textual critic of his generation and held the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1911 until his death in 1936.
- Karl Marx, philosopher and political thinker, studied Latin and Greek and received a Ph.D. for a dissertation on ancient Greek philosophy, entitled "The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." His classical background is reflected in his philosophies—indeed the term "proletariat" which he coined came from that Latin word referring to the lowest class of citizen.
- John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and English Civil War figure; studied, like many educated people of the time, Latin and Greek texts, which influenced Paradise Lost
- Theodor Mommsen, author of History of Rome and works on Roman law; German politician, delegate in the Reichstag during the German Empire period
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher; earned Ph.D. and became Professor of Classics at the University of Basel in Switzerland
- Enoch Powell, British Conservative and later Ulster Unionist politician; wrote and edited texts on Herodotus
- P.G. Wodehouse, writer, playwright, lyricist and creator of Jeeves; studied classics at Dulwich College
- Oscar Wilde, 19th-century playwright and poet; studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford.
Most other pre-20th century Oxbridge playwrights, poets and English scholars studied Classics before English studies became a course in its own right.
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