Ulrich Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff - Achievements

Achievements

Wilamowitz is one of the central figures of 19th and 20th century Classical Philology. As a great authority of the literature and history of Ancient Greece, Wilamowitz took a stance against traditional methodology and textual criticism. As a representative of Postclassicism, he concentrated less on literary history but rather aimed to extract biographical information on the respective authors from the preserved texts. Thus, he employed historical perspectives to serve philology. Apart from his seminal general works (Greek Literature from Antiquity, Hellenistic Poetry), he published numerous detailed studies of Euripides, Homer, Aeschylus, Pindar and Aristotle. As a scientific organiser, he was also responsible for the publication of important standard-setting source material publications, such as Inscriptiones Graecae.

He also passionately supported the preservation of Classical education in the German school system.

Notable pupils of his include Felix Jacoby, Karl Mittelhaus, Wolfgang Schadewaldt, Eduard Fraenkel, Werner Jaeger, Johannes Geffcken, Paul Maas, Eduard Schwartz, Gilbert Murray and Johannes Sykutris.

In recent decades, the American scholar William M. Calder III has been publishing a series of important documents about and by Wilamowitz, including much of his correspondence with Diels, Eduard Norden, Mommsen, Paul Wendland, and others.