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Special Collection: The Works of Gilbert Murray (1866-1957)

George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM (2 January 1866—20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century.

After emigrating to Britain with his mother in 1877, he became in 1889-1899, Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. After 1908 he was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford.

Murray is perhaps now best known for his verse translations of Greek drama, which were popular and prominent in their time. As a poet he was generally taken to be a follower of Swinburne; and had little sympathy from the modernist poets of the rising generation. The staging of Athenian drama in English did have its own cultural impact. He had earlier experimented with his own prose dramas, without much success. He was one of the scholars associated with Jane Harrison in the myth-ritual school of mythography

He was a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party, lining up on the Irish Home Rule and non-imperialist sides of the splits in the party of the late nineteenth century. He supported temperance, and married into a prominent Liberal, aristocratic and temperance family, the Carlisles.

For a brief period Murray became closely involved with the novelist H. G. Wells. Murray is often identified as a humanist, typically with some qualification (‘classical’, ‘scholarly’, ‘engaged’, ‘liberal’). He wrote and broadcast extensively on religion (Greek, Stoic and Christian); and wrote several books dealing with his version of humanism.

See this site Gilbert Murray for much more information on Murray.

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