A. S. L. Farquharson

F. H. S. Shepherd, "University College Fellows", 1934: grouped under the college's bust of King Alfred are D. L. Keir, E. W. Ainley-Walker, A. D. Gardner, G. D. H. Cole, J. P. R. Maud, A. L. Goodhart, J. H. S. Wild, E. J. Bowen, A. B. Poynton, Sir Michael Sadler, A. S. L. Farquharson (in the centre), E. F. Carritt, G. H. Stevenson and K. K. M. Leys.

Meditations translated by Farquharson

Arthur Spencer Loat Farquharson (1871–1942), who published as A. S. L. Farquharson, was a British classicist, translator and Dean of University College Oxford. His best-known work is the translation of Marcus Aurelius' book, Meditations.

Biography

Arthur Spencer Loat Farquharson was born in 1871. He studied at the University College Oxford from 1890 to 1894, where he "obtained a First both in Mods in 1892 and in Finals in 1894". He was a fellow of the university from 1899 to 1942. He was a Dean and read lectures in logic. He participated in revising A Greek–English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott. His best-known work is the translation of Marcus Aurelius' book, Meditations. He was also a Colonel of the Territorial Army.^[1] He also translated Aristotle's Progression of Animals and Movement of Animals, published in 1913.^[2][3]

Writer C. S. Lewis described his encounter with Farquharson in a letter of 26 January 1930 to his friend Arthur Greeves:^[4]

On the strength of having done some office work at Whitehall during the war, and having been in the Territorials before, he has called himself Lieutenant Colonel ever since. He lives in a tall, narrow house, cheek by jowl with Univ. Library which itself is like a mortuary chapel. The space between them is about six feet across; into the Fark’s house daylight never comes. I have never been beyond the ground floor: here in broad low rooms, lined with books, he works by artificial light most of the day. Somewhere, upstairs, is a wife one never meets. He came gliding towards me in the dusk, about five feet four inches high, his face exactly like an egg in shape, with sandy-hair fringing a bald patch, a little military moustache, and eyebrows so far up his forehead that it gives him a perpetual air of astonishment. [...] It is an old subject of controversy just how mad the Fark is.

Meditations

Farquharson worked on the translation of Meditations of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius for many years.^[5] The edition was of two volumes. First volume contained translation and Greek text on opposite pages, and the second one was a lengthy commentaries on the text.^[6] The book was published during the World War II, after Farquharson's death in 1942. Edition was prepared by Major John Sparrow and David Rees, and published in 1944.^[5]

Farquharson's translation was received positively by reviewers. It was called "clear and graceful translation ... [that] contains a magnificent collection of illustrative and parallel passages from writers of all ages".^[7] Another reviewer noted that "[t]here has probably been no scholar of recent times better fitted to edit and interpret the meditations of the Stoic Emperor than the late Dr. Farquharson" and that "the new translation is nearly flawless".^[5] Another reviewer called it "monumental and beautiful work" that "promises to be the standard edition and commentary of Marcus for a long time to come".^[8]

Publications

• Farquharson, A. S. L. (1984). "Progression of Animals". In Jonathan Barnes (ed.). Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 1: The Revised Oxford Translation. Princeton University Press. pp. 1097–1110. doi:10.1515/9781400835843-027. ISBN 9780691016504.
• Farquharson, A. S. L., ed. (1926). Statement and Inference and other Philosophical Papers by John Cook Wilson. Two volumes. Clarendon Press.
• Farquharson, A. S. L. (1937). Movement of Animals. Loeb Classical Library. doi:10.4159/DLCL.aristotle-movement_animals.1937.
• Farquharson, A. S. L., ed. (1944). The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Vol. 1: Text and Translation. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198814276.book.1. ISBN 9780198814276.
• Farquharson, A. S. L., ed. (1944). The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Vol. 2: Greek Commentary. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198814283.book.1. ISBN 9780198814283.

References

1. "UC:S19 Papers of Arthur Spencer Loat Farquharson (Fellow 1899-1942)" (PDF). University College Oxford. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
2. "Aristotle, De Motu Animalium and De Incessu Animalium. Translated by A. S. L. Farquharson. (Oxford Translation of Aristotle's Works, edited by W. D. Ross) Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2s. net. - On Aristotle as a Biologist (Herbert Spencer Lecture, 1913). By D'Arcy W. Thompson. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1s. net". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 33: 136–137. November 1913. doi:10.2307/624102. ISSN 2041-4099. JSTOR 624102. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
3. Marshall, F. H. A. (December 1913). "The Works of Aristotle - De Motu Animalium; De Incessu Animalium. By A. S. L. Farquharson. Translated into English under the editorship of S. A. Smith and W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. 2S. net". The Classical Review. 27 (8): 283–284. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00006296. ISSN 1464-3561. S2CID 164092004. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
4. Lewis, Clive Staples (1986). The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963). Collier Books. pp. 335–336. ISBN 978-0-02-022340-5. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
5. Wheelwright, Philip (1946). "Review of The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus". The Philosophical Review. 55 (1): 97–100. doi:10.2307/2181576. ISSN 0031-8108. JSTOR 2181576. Retrieved 17 January 2024. it represents the fruit of a lifetime of interest in the subject, as Major John Sparrow has demonstrated by the evidence of Farquharson's library-"the hundreds of volumes bearing in their margins copious notes and forests of cross-references, written in his delicate, even hand and dating, some of them, from his undergraduate days
6. Maas, P. (November 1945). "ΜΑΡΚΟΥ ΆΝΤωΝΙΝΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΟΣ ΤΑ ΕΙΣ ΕΑΥΤΟΝ. The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Edited with translation and commentary by A. S. L. Farquharson. 2 vols. Oxford : At the Clarendon Press, London: Humphrey Milford, 1944. Pp. lxxxiv + 936, with 2 plates. £2 2s". The Journal of Roman Studies. 35 (1–2): 144–146. doi:10.2307/297299. ISSN 1753-528X. JSTOR 297299. Retrieved 17 January 2024. For the first time since Gataker (1652), Marcus Antoninus' Meditations have been edited with a complete collection of critical and exegetical material. Edition and translation printed on opposite pages (4-25I) are framed by an Introduction (83 pp.), a summary of the text intelligible to readers without a knowledge of Greek but not intended for those alone (172 pp.), a commentary (470 pp.), a life, a bibliographical list, two plates, and various indexes (the work of Mr. David Rees, Oxford). ... Most of the information contained in the work is, of course, derived from earlier literature, especially Gataker. But much belongs to F. alone: the text chosen with judicious eclecticism from the witnesses and from the conjectures of the last five centuries; half-a-dozen attractive new emendations; a new collation of the MS. A based on photographs (which Mrs. Farquharson generously put at the disposal of the Oxford University Press in 1945); a new translation; many new interpretations; parallels from modern poets and philosophers; and observations on the history of the text from Arethas to Trannoy (1925).
7. Sleeman, J. H. (December 1945). "Marcus Aurelius - A. S. L. Farquharson: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Edited with translation and commentary. 2 vols. Pp. lxxxiv+I–432; 433–936. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944. Cloth, 42s. net". The Classical Review. 59 (2): 60–62. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00087904. ISSN 1464-3561. S2CID 162468094. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
8. K., P. O.; Farquharson, A. S. L. (25 April 1946). "The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus". The Journal of Philosophy. 43 (9): 250. doi:10.2307/2019126. JSTOR 2019126.