Gilbert Murray

From Philosopedia

Murray, (George) Gilbert (Aimé) (2 January 1866 - 20 May 1957)

Murray, the Sydney, New South Wales, Australian-born British classicist, is best known as a Greek scholar, a translator of Greek drama. He wrote The Rise of the Greek Epic (1907) and Hellenism and the Modern World (1953).

He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford. He taught Greek at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford.

Joseph McCabe described Murray as being one of the chief “appeasers” in British public life and, as such, not only never attacked the churches but at times appeared to be against freethinkers. But in an address to the Classical Association, he once confessed that he was an agnostic.

To Warren Allen Smith in 1956, Murray wrote concerning humanism,

My secretary, who misdirected my other letter to you, has now left, so I cannot repeat it. What I must have said, in general, is not to make any such elaborate distinctions between the different kinds of humanism, but one great distinction between that which man can know and what he cannot know; let him act according to his knowledge, but I would say not quite neglect certain things to which he is sensible but cannot at present have certain knowledge. Practically, this puts me on much the same level as Julian Huxley, but with more emphasis on the higher nature of man in regions where the mere animal does not reach.

According to Hector Hawton, Murray preferred the term “Freethinker” to either “Humanist” or “Rationalist.”

Rosalind, his daughter who was a Catholic convert, attacked her father's secularism in The Good Pagan's Failure (1939). In 1952, Murray joined the Rationalist Press Association.

At the age of 91, Murray died in Berkshire, England.

{CE; CL; HNS; HNS2; JM; RAT; RE; TRI; WAS, 19 August 1956}

Contents 1 Works 1.1 Translations 1.2 Classical studies 1.3 Other 2 A Review in The Humanist of Hellenism and the Modern World

Works

Translations

Andromache (1900)

A text edition of Euripedes, Fabulœ, in three volumes (1901, 1904, 1910)

Euripides Translated Into English Rhyming Verse (1902)

Euripides, The Trojan Women (1905)

Electra of Euripedes (1905)

Euripides Medea (1910)

Iphigenia in Tauris (1911)

Oedipus King of Thebes (1911)

The Story of Nefrekepta. From a Demotic Papyrus. (1911)

Rhesus of Euripedes (1913)

Andromache (1913)

Alcestis (1915)

Agamemnon (1920)

Choephoroe (1923)

Eumenides of Aeschylus (1926)

The Oresteia (1928)

The Suppliant Women (1930)

Seven Against Thebes (1935)

The Frogs (1938)

The Persians (1939)

Antigone (1941)

Bacchae (1941)

The Rape of the Locks: The Perikeiromene of Menander (1942)

Fifteen Greek Plays (1943) with others

The Arbitration: the Epitrepontes of Menander (1945)

Euripides Hippolytus (1945)

Oedipus at Colonus (1948)

The Birds (1950)

Euripides, Ion (1954)

Collected Plays of Euripides (1954)

The Knights (1956)

Classical studies

The Place of Greek in Education (1889) Inaugural Lecture

A History of Ancient Greek Literature (1897)

The Rise of the Greek Epic (1907; second edition, 1911) Harvard University lectures

Greek Historical Writing, and Apollo: Two Lectures (1908) with Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff

The Interpretation of Ancient Greek Literature (1909) Inaugural Lecture

Ancient Greek Literature (1911)

English Literature and the Classics (1912) section on Tragedy, editor George Stuart Gordon

Four Stages of Greek Religion (1913)

Euripedes and his Age (1913) in Home University Library

Hamlet and Orestes: A Study in Traditional Types (1914) Annual Shakespeare Lecture 1914

The Stoic Philosophy (1915) Conway Lecture

Aristophanes and the War Party, A Study in the Contemporary Criticism of the Peloponnesian War (1919)

Creighton Lecture 1918, as Our Great War and The Great War of the Ancient Greeks (US, 1920)

Greek Historical Thought: from Homer to the Age of Heraclius (1924) with Arnold J. Toynbee

Five Stages of Greek Religion (1925)

The Classical Tradition in Poetry (1927) Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

Aristophanes: A Study (1933)

Aeschylus: The Creator of Tragedy (1940)

The Wife of Heracles (1947)

Greek Studies (1947)

Hellenism and the Modern World (1953) radio talks

Festschrift - Greek Poetry and Life, Essays presented to Gilbert Murray on his Seventieth Birthday, January 2, 1936 (1936)

Other

Gobi or Shamo (1889) novel

Carlyon Sahib (1899), play

Liberalism and the Empire: Three Essays (1900) with Francis W. Hirst and John L. Hammond

Thoughts on the War (1914) pamphlet

The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, 1906-1915 (1915), online text

The International Crisis in Its Ethical and Psychological Aspects (1915) with others

How Can War Ever Be Right? Oxford Pamphlets No 18/Ist Krieg je berechtigt?/La guerre.

Peut-elle jamais se justifier? (1915)

Impressions of Scandinavia in War Time (1916) pamphlet, reprint from the Westminster Gazette

The United States and the War (1916) pamphlet

The Way Forward: Three Articles on Liberal Policy (1917) pamphlet

Great Britain's Sea Policy - A Reply to an American Critic (1917) pamphlet, reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly

Faith, War and Policy (1917)

Religio Grammatici: The Religion Of A Man Of Letters (1918) Presidential Address to the Classical Association January 8, 1918.

Foreword to My mission to London 1912-1914 by Prince Lichnowsky, the German ambassador in London who had warned Berlin that Britain would fight in August 1914. Cassel & Co. London. (1918)

Satanism and the World Order (1920) Adamson Lecture

The League and Its Guarantees (1920) League of Nations Union pamphlet

Essays and Addresses (1921)

The Problem of Foreign Policy: A Consideration of Present Dangers and the Best Methods for Meeting Them (1921)

Tradition and Progress (1922)

The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1930) Halley Stewart

Lectures 1928

Augustan Book of Poetry (1931) vol. 41

The Intelligent Man's Way To Prevent War (1933) with others

Problems of Peace (Eighth Series) (1933) with others

Then and Now (1935)

Liberality and Civilisation (1938) 1937 Hibbert Lectures

Stoic, Christian and Humanist (1940)

The Deeper Causes of the War and its Issues (1940) with others

World Order Papers, No. 2 (1940) pamphlet, The Royal Institute of International Affairs

Anchor of Civilisation (1942) Philip Maurice Deneke Lecture 1942

A Conversation with Bryce (1943) James Bryce Memorial Lecture, 12 November 1943

Myths And Ethics, or Humanism And The World's Need (1944) Conway Hall lecture

Humanism: Three B.B.C. talks (1944) with Julian Huxley and Joseph Houldsworth Oldham

Victory and After (1945)

From the League to the U.N. (1948)

Spires of Liberty (1948) with others

Andrew Lang: The Poet (1948) Andrew Lang Lecture 1947

The Meaning of Freedom (1956) essays, with others

Humanist Essays (1964) taken from Essays and Addresses, Stoic, Christian and Humanist

A Review in The Humanist of Hellenism and the Modern World

Van Meter Ames, in The Humanist, wrote the following review of Gilbert's Hellenism and the Modern World.