肯尼斯·丹佛

肯尼斯·詹姆斯·丹佛（ FRSE，FBA ，1920年3月11日-2010年3月7日）是一位英国古典学学者，研究古希腊散文和阿里斯托芬喜剧。他曾于1976年至1986年期间担任牛津大学基督圣体学院院长。他还于1978年至1981年期间担任英国国家学术院院长。他还是爱丁堡皇家学会的一员。

Sir Kenneth James Dover, (11 March 1920 – 7 March 2010) was a distinguished British classical scholar and academic. He was president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, from 1976 to 1986. In addition, he was president of the British Academy from 1978 to 1981, and chancellor of the University of St Andrews from 1981 to 2005. A scholar of Greek prose and Aristophanic comedy, he was also the author of Greek Homosexuality (1978), a key text on the subject.

Life

Kenneth Dover was born in London, the only child of Percy Dover and Dorothy Healey. He was educated at St Paul's School and Balliol College, Oxford. He served with the Royal Artillery during the Second World War and was mentioned in despatches for his service in Italy.

After military service, Dover returned to Oxford and became fellow and tutor at his old college in 1948. In 1955, Dover was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews, and was twice dean of the university's Faculty of Arts during his twenty-one years there.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1975. Dover received a knighthood two years later for services to Greek scholarship. In 1976, Dover became president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a post he held for ten years. During this tenure Dover was engaged in a protracted dispute with the college librarian and a fellow in history, Trevor Henry Aston (1925–1985), who suffered from manic depression. Dover attempted to help Aston with his problems for several years but Aston's erratic behaviour increasingly exasperated him and matters came to a head in 1985. In Marginal Comment, his autobiography, Dover admitted: "It was clear to me by now that Trevor and the college must somehow be separated. My problem was one which I feel compelled to define with brutal candour: How to kill him without getting into trouble ... I had no qualms about causing the death of a fellow from whose nonexistence the college would benefit, but I balked at the prospect of misleading a coroner's jury ... consulting a lawyer to see if [I] would be legally at risk if [I] ignored a suicide call." Dover intentionally put pressure on Aston, but other factors too were in play, not least Aston's receipt of divorce papers from his wife's lawyers. Aston was found dead in his rooms on 17 October 1985 after an overdose.

In 1978, he was elected to the presidency of the British Academy, of which he had been a Fellow since 1966, and served for a term of three years. During the 1980s, he also held positions at Cornell University and Stanford University.

Dover returned to St Andrews as the university's chancellor in 1981. He was the first chancellor in the university's history to be neither a peer nor an archbishop. Dover stepped down from the position after twenty-five years of service, effective 31 December 2005.

Scholarship

Dover's scholarly work focused especially on Thucydides, Aristophanes, and Plato, on the stylistics of Greek prose, and on Greek sexual morality. In addition to smaller editions of Thucydides books 6 and 7, he completed (with Antony Andrewes) the fourth and fifth volumes of the Historical Commentary on Thucydides begun by A.W. Gomme and left unfinished at his death. (The complete work is often referred to as "Gomme-Andrewes-Dover.") His work on Aristophanes included two editions with commentary (on Clouds and Frogs) and a book on Aristophanic Comedy aimed at a more general readership.