DOVER, K(enneth) J(ames) 1920-

PERSONAL: Born March 11, 1920, in Croydon, England; son of Percy Henry James (a civil servant) and Dorothy (Healey) Dover; married Audrey Latimer, March 17, 1947; children: Alan Hugh, Catherine Ruth. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Balliol College, Oxford, M.A., 1947; attended Merton College, Oxford, 1948. Politics: "Left of center." Religion: Agnostic. Hobbies and other interests: "Unspoiled natural scenery, fauna and flora, comparative and historical linguistics, the processes of change in ethics, religion and society."

ADDRESSES: Home—49 Hepburn Gardens, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9LS, Scotland.

CAREER: Oxford University, Balliol College, Oxford, England, fellow and tutor in classics, 1948-55; University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, professor of Greek, 1955-76, dean of faculty of arts, 1960-63, 1973-75; Oxford University, Corpus Christi College, president, 1976-86; University of St. Andrews, chancellor, 1986—. Harvard University, visiting lecturer, 1960; University of California—Berkeley, Sather Visiting Professor of Classics, 1967; Stanford University, professor, between 1988 and 1992. Military service: British Army, 1940-45; served in Africa and Italy; became lieutenant; mentioned in dispatches.

MEMBER: British Academy (fellow; president, 1978-81), Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (president, 1971-74), Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, Classical Association (president, 1976), Linguistics Association of Great Britain, Royal Society of Edinburgh (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS: Knighted, 1977.

WRITINGS:

Greek Word Order, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1960.

(Author of commentary) Thucydides, History of thePeloponnesian War, Books 6 and 7, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1965.

Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1968.

Aristophanic Comedy, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1972.

Thucydides, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1973.

Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Blackwell (London, England), 1974.

Greek Homosexuality, Duckworth (London, England), 1978.

The Greeks, BBC Publications (London, England), 1980.

(With A. W. Gomme and A. Andrewes) HistoricalCommentary on Thucydides, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), Volume 4, 1970, Volume 5, 1981.

Greek and the Greeks: Collected Papers, Volume 1: Language, Poetry, Drama, Blackwell (London, England), 1987.

The Greeks and Their Legacy: Collected Papers, Volume 2: Prose, Literature, History, Society, Transmission, Influence, Blackwell (London, England), 1988.

Marginal Comment: A Memoir, Duckworth (London, England), 1994.

The Evolution of Greek Prose Style, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1997.

EDITOR:

(And author of introduction and commentary) Aristophanes, Clouds, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1968.

(And author of introduction and commentary) Theocritus, Selected Poems, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1971.

Plato, Symposium, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1980.

(And contributor) Ancient Greek Literature, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1980, 2nd edition, 1997.

Perceptions of the Ancient Greeks, Blackwell (London, England), 1992.

(And author of introduction and commentary) Aristophanes, Frogs, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1993, student edition, 1997.

J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, 2d edition, Hackett Publishing (Indianapolis, IN), 1996.

Coeditor, Classical Quarterly, 1962-68.

SIDELIGHTS: K. J. Dover once told CA: "My main motivation for writing is love of my subject. When I have resolved a problem in ancient Greek literature or history, I want to communicate my findings to others, so that understanding of the subject, and interest in it, may be increased.

"In the case of my autobiography, Marginal Comment: A Memoir, my purpose was different: to try to influence the genre of autobiography by producing a specimen of what I thought it ought to be like.

"The main influences on my work have been (1) the work of certain scholars of my parents' generation, (2) any work on any subject which has attracted me, as its reader, by its method and style.

"Writing process: I always write first those portions of a work which come most easily, putting the most difficult off until the end. My main problem is always to find the right sequence and connection of thought in an exposition. I rewrite constantly, sometimes going through six or more versions until a feeling of 'That's it!' stops me.

"What determined my choice of subjects was a combination of my own deep-seated inclination (language and history) with the opportunities available to me as a school pupil and student, and thereafter the gaps in our understanding which became apparent to me as a teacher."

In addition to Greek, Dover is competent in Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, French, and modern Greek.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Philology, fall, 1995, Kenneth Reckford, review of Frogs, p. 488.

Antiquity, March, 1993, Timothy Taylor and Cyprian Broodbank, review of Perceptions of the Ancient Greeks, p. 160.

Christian Century, July 16, 1980.

Classical Philology, January, 1995, Simon Goldhill, review of Frogs, p. 86.

Greece & Rome, April, 1991, N. Hopkinson, "Aristophanes: Clouds, Acharnians, Lysistrata," p. 83.

National Review, December 19, 1994, John O'Sullivan, review of Marginal Comment: A Memoir, p. 8.

New Statesman, September 26, 1980, Julian Barnes, "Not the Nine O'Clock News . . . The Greeks," p. 34.

New Statesman & Society, December 9, 1994, Paul Cartledge, review of Marginal Comment, p. 39.

New York Times, November 28, 1994, John Darnton, review of Marginal Comment, p. A1.

New York Times Book Review, April 8, 1979.

Notes and Queries, March, 1989, M. L. West, review of Greek and the Greeks: Collected Papers, Volume 1: Language, Poetry, Drama, p. 88; March, 1990, Colin Leach, review of The Greeks and Their Legacy: Collected Papers, Volume 2: Prose, Literature, History, Society, Transmission, Influence, p. 69.

Past & Present, February, 2001, James Davidson, "Dover, Foucault, and Greek Homosexuality: Penetration and the Truth of Sex," p. 3.

Spectator, January 28, 1995, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, review of Marginal Comment, p. 30.

Times Higher Education Supplement, December 9, 1994, Valentine Cunningham, "Contract Terminated," p. 15; December 23, 1994, Max Beloff, review of Marginal Comment, p. 21.

Times Literary Supplement, April 3, 1981; January 13, 1995, Bernard Knox, review of Marginal Comment, p. 22; April 14, 1995, Erich Segal, review of Frogs, p. 3.