[AGL] Re: Arrowsmith

[Michael Eisenstadt]

i was forwarded a number of remarks about UT classics
professors Arrowsmith and John Sullivan.

I had 2 classes with Arrowsmith, 1 with John Sullivan.
Sullivan's was on Latin lyric poets and I remember
his remarks on textual problems being acute and
grounded in Latin language competence. This is
rare among American classics professors, but
Sullivan was an Englishman and educated there.

In one of Arrowsmith's seminars we read Apuleius'
The Golden Ass. The other was on Euripides about
whom Arrowsmith had a new theory, namely
"modality." When pressed to define modality he
was never able to come up with anything that made
sense. The very pleasant seminar setting was in his 
and Jean's house out on Red Bud Trail. After the
seminar he would serve cookies and sangria mixed 
in a kitchen pot: nasty. 

As for Arrowsmith's competence in Greek and Latin,
he seemed to know Greek fairly well. As for his
competence in Latin, a much more difficult language,
there is an amusing anecdote in a memorial to him
written by Saul Bellow. Bellow knew him at Princeton 
where they became friends. In Rome once walking 
about together a beggar accosted them, questioned 
them as to their professions and learning that 
Arrowsmith was a classics professor, spouted out a 
reel of memorized Latin and challenged Arrowsmith 
to identify the author. He undoubtedly pronounced 
Latin in Catholic school style with "ch"s and soft "g"s. 
Arrowsmith at a total loss told Bellow that it wasn't 
real Latin, just mumbojumbo. I could never decide 
whether Bellow realized that Arrowsmith was 
bullshitting him or not. Probably not or why put the
story in a memorial to a friend? I gave a copy of the 
piece to classics prof David Armstrong for his reaction. 
His conclusion was the same: Arrowsmith didn't 
have a clue. Hard position to be in. How to explain
to Bellow that American classicists don't really know 
Latin and Greek like Englishmen and continentals? 

Bellow's reminiscence/memorial to Arrowsmith is in 
his "It all adds up."