All Scholars
LENZ, Friedrich Walter
- Date of Birth: May 2, 1896
- Born City: Berlin
- Born State/Country: Germany
- Parents: Heinrich, a physician, & Helene L.
- Date of Death: November 15, 1969
- Death City: Austin
- Death State/Country: TX
- Married: Amalie Goldmann, a doctoral student of Ernst Cassirer, December 22, 1921
- Education:
Mommsen Gymnasium 1903-13; Ph.D., Berlin, 1919
- Dissertation:
De Demosthenis περὶ συντάξεως oratione (Berlin, 1919).
- Professional Experience:
Asst. teacher, Mommsen Gymnasium, 1917-19; vis. lectr., Yale, 1939; prof., Connecticut Women’s College (now Connecticut College), 1939-45; prof. and head of Foreign Languages, Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX), 1945-58; vis. assoc. prof. University of Texas at Austin, 1953-4
- Publications:
P. Ovidius Naso. Opera. Vol. 3,1: Tristium libri V, Ibis, Ex ponto libri IV. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1922); P. Ovidius Naso. Opera. Vol. 3,2: Fastorum libri VI, fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1924); Albii Tibulli aliorumque carminum libri tres(Leipzig: Teubner, 1927; 2nd ed., 1937); Seneca: Phaedra (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929); Untersuchungen zu den Aristeidesscholien (Berlin: Weidmann, 1934); Licentius,” “Luxorius,” “Lygdamus” Maximianus 3,” Maximinus 21a,” “Merobaudes 3,” Nemesianus 2,” “Nux,” “Ovidius 2,” Pentadius 5,” “Pervigilium Veneris,” “Petrus 123,” Terentius 88,” “Tiberianus 1,” Timotheos 10,” Tuccianus 2,” Tuticanus 1,” Tuticanus 2” in RE (Vols. VII-XIX); P. Ovidii Nasonis Halieutica, Fragmenta, Nux. Incerti Consolatio ad Liviam (Turin: Paravia, 1937; 2nd ed., 1956); “Erinnerungen an Ernst Cassirer,” Monatshefte. 40 (1948) 401–5; “Erinnerungen an Eduard Norden,” A&A 7 (1958) 159–71; The Aristeides Prolegomena (Leiden: Brill, 1959); Albii Tibulli aliorumque carminum libri tres. (Leiden: Brill, 1959; 2nd ed., 1964; 3rded., 1971); Ovid: Heilmittel gegen die Liebe die Pflege des Weiblichen Gesichtes (Darmstadt & Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960; repr. 2022); “Eduard Nordens Leistung für die Altertumswissenschaft,” Altertum. 6 (1960) 245–54; Thomas Magister: Fünf Reden (Leiden: Brill. 1963); Aristeidesstudien (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1964); Ovid: Die Liebeselegien (Darmstadt & Berlin 1965; 2nd ed.rev.,1966; 3rd ed., with Mali G. Lenz, 1966);Tibull: Gedichte. (Stuttgart: Reclam,1966); Ovid: Die Liebeskunst (Darmstadt & Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969); Ovid: Ars amatoria & Die Liebeskunst II. (trans. & adapted) (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970); P. Aelii Aristidis opera quae exstant omnia. Vier Bände, (with Charles Allison Behr) (Leiden: Brill, 1976–78).
Kleine Schriften: Opuscula Selecta (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1972).
- Notes:
Friedrich Walter Lenz (born Friedrich Walter Levy) studied under three of the greatest German classicists, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848-1931), Herman Diels (1848-1922), who would direct his dissertation, and especially Eduard Norden (1868-1941). Though he wrote his 1919 dissertation under Diels, it would be Norden who particularly championed his student. As a Jew, Levy knew he was unlikely to get a university position and confined his teaching career to secondary schools after passing the state examination in 1918. Norden helped him obtain a scholarship from the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft for a period of study at Florence. Through Norden Levy met the editors of the Pauly-Wissowa encyclopedia, Wilhelm Kroll (1869-1939) and Karl Mittelhaus (1877-1946). Levy would write 18 articles for the encyclopedia, mostly on grammarians. When Levy was named to a permanent position as a teacher in Minden in Westphalia in 1930, he changed his last name to Lenz.
Obliged to resign in 1933, he went to Florence in 1936 where he worked under Giorgio Pasquali. Again with the help of Norden, and the Yale Latinist George Lincoln Hendrickson (1865-1963), Lenz secured a lectureship at Yale for 1939 and subsequently a professorship at Connecticut Women’s College. He concluded his career in Texas where he revised his edition of Tibullus. He did not live to complete the third edition, which was seen through the press by Karl Galinsky (1942-2024).
- Sources:
Bernhard Kytzler, “Friedrich Walter Lenz †,” Gnomon, 43 (1971) 526–7;
- Author: Ward Briggs
