All Scholars
WHEELER, Arthur Leslie
- Date of Birth: August 12, 1871
- Born City: Hartford
- Born State/Country: CT
- Parents: William Ruthven & Emily Elizabeth Crego W.
- Date of Death: May 22, 1932
- Death City: Princeton
- Death State/Country: NJ
- Married: May Louise Waters, 20 June 1895; Anna Johnson Pell, 2 July 1925.
- Education:
A.B. Yale, 1893; Ph.D., 1896.
- Dissertation:
"The Use of the Imperfect Indicative in Plautus and Terence" (Yale, 1893); printed as "The Uses of the Imperfect Indicative in Plautus and Terence," TAPA 30 (1899) 14-23; "The Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin," AJP 24 (1903) 163-91; "The Syntax of the Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin," CP 1 (1906) 357-90
- Professional Experience:
Instr. Lat. Yale, 1894-1900; asso. prof, to prof. Lat. & head dept. Bryn Mawr, 1900-25; prof. Lat. Princeton, 1925-32; chair class, dept., 1926-32; mng. comm. ASCSR, 1901-3; pres. CAAS, 1923-4; Sather prof., 1927-8.
- Publications:
"Hieremias de Montagnone and Catullus," AJP 29 (1908) 186-200; "Propertius as Praeceptor Amoris," CP 5 (1910) 28-40; "Erotic Teaching in Roman Elegy and the Greek Sources," CP 5 (1910) 440-50; 6 (1911) 56-76; "Satura as a Generic Term," CP 7 (1912) 457-77; "Catullus as an Elegist," AJP 36 (1915) 155-84; "The Plot of the Epidicus," AJP 38 (1917) 237-64; Ovid. Tristia, Ex ponto (trans.), LCL (Cambridge & London, 1924); "Topics from the Life of Ovid," AJP 46 (1925) 1-28; "Tradition in the Epithalamium," AJP 51 (1930) 205-23; Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry, Sather Lects. 9 (Berkeley, 1934; repr. 1964).
- Notes:
Wheeler was a leading critic of Latin poetry whose specialty, like that of his near-contemporary Kirby Flower Smith, was the Roman elegists. His work was marked by more than usual (even for his era) attention to precise scholarship and modest good sense, perhaps owing to his early interest in grammar, fostered by Edward Parmelee Morris. His impact on the study of Roman poetry was to set the elegists in the context of the history of their genres, with particular attention to their Greek forebears. In this regard, his Sather Lectures on Catullus' performance in his various genres are still of value. Though he did not have the range or depth of K. F. Smith, his solid and sensible approach influenced the subsequent work of his many students.Wheeler was an avid hiker and amateur sportsman in the best sense, leading him to contribute articles to Forest and Stream magazine.
- Sources:
C. W. Mendell, DAB Suppl. 1:700-1; WhAm 1:1327.
- Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr.
