Edgar Lobel

Edgar Lobel (24 December 1888 – 7 July 1982) was a Romanian-British classicist and papyrologist who is best known for his four decades overseeing the publication of the literary texts among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and for his edition of Sappho and Alcaeus in collaboration with Denys Page. His contributions to the fields of papyrology and Greek studies were many and substantial, and Eric Gardner Turner believed that Lobel should "be acknowledged as a scholar to be mentioned in the same breath as Porson and Bentley, a towering genius of English scholarship."[1]

Edgar Lobel
Born(1888-12-24)24 December 1888
Iași, Romania
Died7 July 1982(1982-07-07) (aged 93)
Oxford, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Spouse(s)Mary Lobel
Scientific career
FieldsClassical philology, papyrology
InstitutionsQueen's College, Oxford,
Bodleian Library

Early life and education

Lobel was born in Iași, Romania on 24 December 1888.[2] As a youth he moved to Higher Broughton with his parents Amelia and Arthur Lobel, a shipowner.[3] He was educated at Kersal School before moving on to Manchester Grammar School where he was head boy and won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford in 1906.[4] Despite the fact that his father had been compelled by poverty to emigrate to the United States, Lobel took up his scholarship in 1907 and studied under several noted classicists, including the Lucretius scholar Cyril Bailey and A.W. Pickard-Cambridge [5] In 1911 he graduated having taken first class in Mods and Greats, in addition to winning the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse and several other University honours.[5] After a year's work as a professor's assistant, he continued his studies at Oxford, where he made close acquaintances of Gilbert Murray and his wife.[5] But perhaps the most important friendship that he struck during this period was with the papyrologist A.S. Hunt, who introduced Lobel to the study of papyrology and induced him to travel to Berlin to study under Wilhelm Schubart in 1913 and 1914.[5]

Academic career and later life
Detail of P.Oxy. X 1232, the papyrus which occasioned the first mention of Lobel in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri: "We are indebted to Mr. E. Lobel for several good suggestions on the text of this papyrus." This text would later stand as Sappho fr. 44 in the text of the Lesbian poets which Lobel prepared with Denys Page.

His edition of Sappho and Alcaeus, Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta (co-edited with Denys Page), appeared in 1955, and in the same year Lobel declined to be knighted.[6]

Publications

The Oxryhynchus Papyri
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XVIII [2157-2207] (London, 1941)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XIX [2208-2244] (London, 1948)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XX [2245-2287] (London, 1952)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXI [2288-2308] (London, 1951)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXII [2309-2353] (London, 1954)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIII [2354-2382] (London, 1956)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIV [2383-2425] (London, 1957)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXV [2426-2437] (London, 1959)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVI [2438-2451] (London, 1961)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVII [2452-2480] (London, 1962)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXVIII [2481-2505] (London, 1962)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXIX [2506] (London, 1963)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXX [2507-2530] (London, 1964)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXI [2531-2616] (London, 1966)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXII [2617-2653] (London, 1967)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIII [2654-2682] (London, 1968)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIV [2683-2732] (London, 1968)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXV [2733-2744] (London, 1968)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVI [2745-2800] (London, 1970)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVII [2801-2823] (London, 1971)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXVIII [2824-2877] (London, 1971)
  • The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. XXXIX [2878-2891] (London, 1972)

Some of these volumes were edited by other scholars (like vol. XXIX, by Sir Denys Page), but Lobel was the general editor of the series. Vols. XXVIII-XX gave significant contributions to our knowledge of Callimachus' works.

Critical editions
  • Σαπφοῦς μέλη: The Fragments of the Lyrical Poems of Sappho (Oxford, 1925)
  • Ἀλκαίου μέλη: The Fragments of the Lyrical Poems of Alcaeus (Oxford, 1927)
  • (with D. Page) Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (Oxford, 1955)

Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (commonly referred in editions as Lobel-Page or L.-P.) is still one of the two standard editions of Sappho and Alcaeus, the other being E.-M. Voigt (ed.), Sappho et Alcaeus. Fragmenta (Amsterdam 1971).

Select occasional publications
  • Greek Manuscripts of Aristotle's Poetics (London, 1933)

Notes
  1. Turner (1983, p. 276)
  2. Lloyd-Jones (2004), who adds: "or 12 December under the Julien calendar then in force in Romania." Turner (1983, p. 276) incorrectly reports that Lobel was born in Higher Broughton in 1889, and this year is repeated at the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project website
  3. Lloyd-Jones (2004)
  4. Lloyd-Jones (1991, p. 213), Turner (1983, p. 276)
  5. Turner (1983, p. 276), Lloyd-Jones (2004)
  6. "The refuseniks and the honours they turned down", The Times, 21 December 2003

Bibliography
  • Lehnus, L. (2010), "Edgar Lobel", in Capasso, M. (ed.), Hermae: Scholars and Scholarship in Papyrology, vol. II, Pisa & Rome, ISBN 9788862273374.
  • Lloyd-Jones, H. (1991), "Edgar Lobel", Greek in a Cold Climate, Savage, MD, pp. 213–14, ISBN 0389209678.
  • Lloyd-Jones, H. (2004), "Lobel, Edgar (1888–1982)]", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  • McGuinness, Brian (December 16, 1993), "Obituary: Mary Lobel", The Independent
  • Turner, E.G. (1980), Greek Papyrology: An Introduction (2nd rev. ed.), Oxford, ISBN 0198148410.
  • Turner, E.G. (1983), "Edgar Lobel †", Gnomon, 55: 275–80, JSTOR 27688386.
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