North American Scholar

AB Stanford, 1930; PhD, 1935; AM Harvard, 1931

Instr class Stanford, 1932-4; instr to prof, class U Michigan, 1934-77; pres APA, 1977-8

“The Pathetic Fallacy in Greek Poetry from the Close of the Fifth Century” (Stanford, 1935)

“The Pathetic Fallacy in Early Greek Poetry,” AJP 58 (1937) 194-209; “A Paraclausithyron from Pompeii: A Study of CIL IV, Suppl 5296,” AJP 60 (1939) 333-49; Odes III,5,13-18,” AJP 62 (1941) 87-9; Sat 1,1,147-50,” ibid, 219-21; “The Suicide-Paraclausithyron A Study of Ps-Theocritus, Idyll XXIII,” TAPA 71 (1940) 52-61; “On the Origin of Certain Features of the Paraclausithyron,” TAPA 73 (1942) 96-107; “Servitium amoris in the Roman Elegists,” TAPA 78 (1947) 285-300; “Emotional Conflict and its Significance in the Lesbia-Poems of Catullus,” AJP 70 (1949) 22-40; “The 'Riddle' of Catullus 67,” TAPA 80 (1949) 245-53; “Catullus c 1,” TAPA 82 (1951) 200-6; “Catullus LV, 9-14,” AJP 73 (1952) 295-7; “Catullus 35,” AJP 74 (1953) 149-60; Exclusus Amator A Study in Latin Love Poetry, APA Monogr XVII (Madison, WI, 1956); “Catullus, c 38,” TAPA 87 (1956) 125-9; “The Unity of Catullus 68: A Further View,” CP 52 (1957) 29-32; “Catullus C IV: The World of the Poem,” TAPA 89 (1958) 9-13; “ Plautus Poenulus 53-55,” AJP 91 (1970) 77-8; Latin Literature from the Beginnings to the Close of the Second Century AD (Ann Arbor, 1969); “The Structure of Catullus c 51 and the Problem of the Otium-Strophe,” GB 2 (1974) 25-37; “Catullus 255,” Latomus 35 (1976) 416-8; “The Art of Poetry A Study of Catullus c 11,” AFLNice No 50 (1985) 253-60 Translations: Plautus The Menaechmi (New York, 1949); Terence The Woman of Andros (New York, 1949); Plautus The Haunted House (Mostellaria) (New York, 1955); Plautus The Rope (Rudens) (New York, 1956); Catullus the Complete Poetry (Ann Arbor, 1957); Terence Phormio (New York, 1958); Terence Adelphoe (New York, 1962); Terence Hecyra (New York, 1962); The Aeneid A Verse Translation, intro by B Otis (New York, 1965; 2d ed Indianapolis, 1975); Cicero on Old Age and On Friendship (Ann Arbor, 1967); The Comedies of Terence (Indianapolis, 1967); Lucretius The Nature of Things (New York, 1977)

Frank O. Copley was an unusually talented teacher of Latin poetry and a scholar whose articles, books, and translations are marked by the insights of a poet.The centerpiece of his scholarly writings is the book Exclusus Amator, which remains the essential study of the important convention in Latin love poetry of the excluded lover's lament to the closed door. His many articles on individual poems of Catullus brought them a new critical understanding and a poet's perception. His deep and comprehensive understanding of the currents of Roman literature issued in the book Latin Literature from the Beginnings to the Close of the Second Century A.D. His poetic talents are evident in his scholarship on Roman lyric and elegiac poetry, and in his popular translations. His versions of Plautus and Terence have a lively, colloquial style. He admired the poetry of e.e. cummings, with whom he eventually became friends, and Copley's translation of the poems of Catullus clearly pay homage to the style of cummings, in whom he saw a modern successor to Catullus' style and manner. His verse translation of the Aeneid has had a steady popularity. In his retirement, for the benefit of his children and grandchildren, he embodied his reminiscences in three volumes of autobiographical poems in which his poetic gifts sound forth a more personal note.As director of admissions at the University of Michigan from 1942 to 1947 Copley developed and implemented the university's policy for the admission of returning World War II veterans. He was a pioneer in developing advanced placement programs for talented high school students in Michigan and surrounding states. He had an important share in developing the comparative literature program at Michigan. But it was in teaching that Frank Copley took the greatest joy, and he was the teacher of a student's dreams Whether it was Roman Law, Great Books, Plautus, Catullus, Propertius, or Latin literature in translation, Frank Copley's courses were always fun He was able to get an incredible amount of work out of students while at the same time stimulating their joy in it His lectures and discussions were lucid, often very moving and inspiring, systematically informative, and marked by good humor and a twinkle in the eye His gentle courtesy and generosity to students were unfailing, and his teaching was the more effective because behind the material and the pedagogical strategy students perceived a man of unusually admirable character

APA Newsletter (Dec 1992) 20; DAS 1982:104; Ann Zinn.