Friedrich Solmsen
| Friedrich Solmsen | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 4, 1904 Bonn, Germany |
| Died | January 30, 1989 (aged 84) Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Classical philology |
| Institutions | Cornell University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Alma mater | Humboldt University of Berlin |
| Doctoral advisor | Werner Jaeger |
| Other academic advisors | Eduard Norden, Otto Regenbogen, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff |
Friedrich W. Solmsen (February 4, 1904 – January 30, 1989) was a philologist and professor of classical studies. He published nearly 150 books, monographs, scholarly articles, and reviews from the 1930s through the 1980s. Solmsen's work is characterized by a prevailing interest in the history of ideas. He was an influential scholar in the areas of Greek tragedy, particularly for his work on Aeschylus, and the philosophy of the physical world and its relation to the soul, especially the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
Friedrich Solmsen, sometimes called "Fritz" by friends and intimates, was born and educated in Germany. He was among the "Graeca" of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, the Graeca being a group of "young scholars" who met in his home during his last decade of life to read a Greek author with a view toward emending the text. In an essay fifty years later, Solmsen recalled those years and the legendary philologist in a biographical sketch that combines politico-historical perspective, sociology of academia, and personal, sometimes wry observations. "I do not recall Wilamowitz ever laughing aloud," he mused in a footnoted aside. "Nor did he ever grin." Solmsen was also a student of Eduard Norden, Otto Regenbogen, and Werner Jaeger, to the three of whom along with Wilamowitz he dedicated the first volume of his collected papers. He was one of the last people to whom the terminally ill Wilamowitz addressed correspondence.
Solmsen's dissertation on Aristotelian logic and rhetoric was published in 1928. He left Germany to escape Nazism in the mid-1930s, and after a time in England came to the United States, where he taught at Olivet College (1937–1940) in Michigan. He then moved to Cornell University, where he served a term as chair of the classics department. He taught at Cornell for twenty-two years. Among his courses was "Foundations of Western Thought," which explored the history of philosophical, scientific and religious ideas from early Greece through the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
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