George Eckel Duckworth

George Eckel Duckworth (February 13, 1903 – April 5, 1972) was an American classicist at Princeton University, serving as the Giger Professor of Latin from 1946 until his retirement in 1971. A scholar of Roman comedy and of Virgil, he is best known for his critical edition of Plautus's Epidicus and for The Nature of Roman Comedy (1952), long regarded as the standard introduction to the subject, as well as for his controversial argument that Virgil and other Latin poets structured their verse according to the golden ratio. He served as president of the American Philological Association in 1955–56.

Early life and education

George Eckel Duckworth was born on February 13, 1903, in Little York, New Jersey, to Edwin James Duckworth and Eva Eckel Duckworth.

Academic career

Duckworth was promoted to assistant professor at Princeton in 1930 and to associate professor in 1940.

Duckworth began his teaching career chiefly as an instructor of Greek, later shifting his emphasis to Latin—a change he liked to say was prompted in part by once being introduced to a lecture audience as "a man who knows his Greek from alpha to zeta." It was later described by his colleagues as one of the first full critical editions, in the tradition of German wissenschaftliche Ausgaben, of an ancient literary text produced by an American scholar. Duckworth also produced The Complete Roman Drama (2 vols., Random House, 1942), an anthology of English translations of the comedies of Plautus and Terence and the tragedies of Seneca, as well as a shorter classroom anthology, Roman Comedies (1963). A memorial minute in his honor, composed by Henry T. Rowell, was read and adopted by a rising vote at the American Philological Association's annual meeting in December 1972.

Selected publications

Foreshadowing and Suspense in the Epics of Homer, Apollonius, and Vergil. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1933. T. Macci Plauti Epidicus, Edited with Critical Apparatus and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940. The Complete Roman Drama (2 vols.). New York: Random House, 1942. The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952. "The Architecture of the Aeneid." American Journal of Philology 75 (1954): 1–15. "Animae Dimidium Meae: Two Poets of Rome." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 87 (1956): 281–316. "Turnus and Duryodhana." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 92 (1961): 81–127. Structural Patterns and Proportions in Vergil's Aeneid. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962. Roman Comedies: An Anthology. New York, 1963. Vergil and Classical Hexameter Poetry: A Study in Metrical Variety. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969.