The Classical Legacy of Gilbert Highet: An In-Depth Retrospect [Hardcover]

Gilbert Highet (1906-1978) was one of Columbia University's greatest teachers and in his day the most celebrated classical scholar in America. One may regard his life and career as both extraordinary and controversial. Now, over forty years after his death, a fresh retrospect seems appropriate, as a way of presenting new information about him and evaluating his enduring classical legacy for the twenty-first century reader. This fully documented biographical appreciation of Highet's life and work, capped by fully updated bibliographies of publications by him and about him, offers a long-overdueofficial lifeof this unique and towering figure. Robert Ball ... has done a useful service ... in providing this 'retrospect,' with its comprehensive bibliography, its overview of Highet's scholarly and pedagogical legacies, and ... its detailed footnotes ... Ball's thorough and meticulous bibliography gives a valuable sense of the scope of Highet's publications. ... Where Ball excels is in his own plentiful footnotes, which are apparently a tribute to his mentor's style.... The Classical Legacy of Gilbert Highet is both a moving tribute and a valuable resource. It's also a vivid reminder of an era and a style of scholarship that seem to have vanished beyond recall. And yet one never knows. Rachel Hadas, Professor of English, Rutgers University at Newark, in Classical Outlook 97, [2022]: 31-34 Robert J. Ball ... has written in The Classical Legacy of Gilbert Highet: An In-Depth Retrospect a 'documented examination of Highet's life, teaching, and scholarship' (ix) as an admirable and admiring tribute to his former teacher. The book complements The Classical Papers of Gilbert Highet ... and The Unpublished Lectures of Gilbert Highet ... both edited by Ball ... The book needs to be read with Ball's other valuable works on Highet. Over all, Professor Ball, in the course of wide-ranging, painstaking research over many years, has presented, here and in other publications, a rich,