Marginal Comment, which attracted keen and widespread interest on its original publication in 1994, is the remarkable memoir of one of the most distinguished classical scholars of the modern era. Its author, Sir Kenneth Dover, whose academic publications included the pathbreaking book Greek Homosexuality (1978, reissued by Bloomsbury in 2016), conceived of it as an ‘experimental’ autobiography – ruthlessly candid in retracing the full range of the author’s experiences, both private and public, and unflinching in its attempt to analyse the entanglements between the life of the mind and the life of the body.
Dover’s distinguished career involved not only an influential series of writings about the ancient Greeks but also a number of prominent positions of leadership, including the presidencies of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the British Academy. It was in those positions that he became involved in several high-profile controversies, including the blocking of an honorary degree for Margaret Thatcher from Oxford University, and a bitter debate in the British Academy over the fellowship of Anthony Blunt after his exposure as a former Soviet spy.
This edition of Marginal Comment is much more than a reissue: it includes an introduction which frames the book in relation to its author’s life and work, as well as annotations based in part on materials originally excluded by Dover but left in his personal papers on this death. Now newly available, the memoir provides not only the self-portrait of an exceptional individual but a rich case-study in the intersections between an intellectual life and its social contexts.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
Editorial Foreword
Introduction: The Conception and Reception of Marginal Comment
(Stephen Halliwell)
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. On Autobiography
2. Forebears
3. Escape Routes 1920–1932
4. Body and Soul 1926–1934
5. Exotica 1933–
6. Reconstitution 1935–1936
7. Transition 1936–1940
8. Intermission 1940–1945
9. Women, Children and Work 1940–1951
10. History, Comedy and Other Things 1949–
11. Migration 1951–1960
12. People and Power 1955–1966
13. Mind and Body 1958–
14. Plato and After 1962–1989
15. Tributaries 1962–
16. The Public 1964–1980
17. Fruition 1966–1968
18. Revolutions (Fringe) 1968–1975
19. Right and Wrong 1969–1983
20. Elevations 1970–1993
21. Dovers 1972–1982
22. College and University 1975–1986
23. Style 1977–1994
24. Excursions 1979–1984
25. The Blunt Affair 1979–1981
26. The Aston Affair 1980–1985
27. Admissions 1982–1984
28. Best Before 1983–
29. At Large 1984–1992
30. The Thatcher Affair 1985
31. A History Man
32. Epimetron 1994
Index
About the Author :
Sir Kenneth Dover was Professor Emeritus of Greek at the University of St Andrews and President of Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, UK. Among his many publications are Greek Homosexuality (reissued with forewords, Bloomsbury, 2016).
Christopher Stray is Honorary Research Fellow, University of Swansea, and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Classics, University of London, UK. He is a leading authority on the history of classical scholarship. His publications include Remaking the Classics: Literature, Genre and Media in Britain, 1800-2000 (Bloomsbury 2007) A.E. Housman: Classical Scholar (Bloomsbury, 2009) and Classical Dictionaries: Past, Present and Future (Bloomsbury, 2010).
Stephen Halliwell is Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews, UK. He is the author of The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Bloomsbury, 1987) and Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity (2008).
Review :
Sir Kenneth Dover was both one of the 20th century's most brilliant classicists and a far from merely academic protagonist in at least two major intellectual scandals - about which he laid bare his heart as well as his head. This new edition of his blisteringly controversial memoir, Marginal Comment, is hugely to be welcomed.
It has been a great pleasure rereading his autobiography nearly 20 years on. Edited by Stephen Halliwell, a colleague of Dover’s at St Andrews, and Christopher Stray, an expert on the history of classical education and scholarship, it makes important and enlightening additions to the original text.
