Academic who fostered understanding between Greeks and Scots dies

Died: September 17, 2024

Professor Alexander Femister Garvie was one of the most talented British Hellenists of his generation. He lectured at Glasgow University for 39 years, latterly in a personal chair of Greek, and in that time built up an international reputation for his studies of Greek Tragedy and Greek Epic.

This brought him a stream of talented and advanced research students, while he was equally enthusiastic in introducing Greek studies to the Greekless. He will be remembered by generations of Scottish classicists as a profoundly inspiring mentor and interpreter of Greek language and literature, and by friends and family as a warm and wise human being.

Born in 1934 in Edinburgh, Alex attended George Watson’s Boys’ College, where he was taught by the legendary John “Iky” Penman, whose pupils chanted Greek and Latin verb and noun forms until their grammatical knowledge was perfect.

Joint Dux of the school in 1952, Alex entered Edinburgh University, taking a first class degree in Honours Classics in 1955, and winning a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Further study was however interrupted by the need to undertake national service until 1957. The army had Alex taught Modern Greek and sent him to Cyprus to be an interpreter. In spite of the challenging circumstances of the Cypriot insurgency, Alex developed a liking for the Greeks of today which never left him.

On his return he took a first in both parts of the Cambridge classical tripos, before beginning research on Aeschylus, the most difficult of the Greek dramatists. Before he could complete a doctorate, he was appointed assistant lecturer in Greek at Glasgow in 1960, where, in spite of a full teaching load, he went on to illuminate Greek tragedy in a series of masterly publications: a study of Aeschylus’s Suppliants, in 1969; editions with full commentaries on the same author’s Choephori (1986) and Persae (2009) and on Sophocles’s Ajax (1998), as well as on books VI-VIII of Homer’s Odyssey (1994).

While being full of exact and judicious linguistic scholarship, Alex’s books never forget the permanent literary interest of Greek drama, something prominent in his two shorter studies for the less advanced student, The Plays of Sophocles (2005), and The Plays of Aeschylus (2010). For six years he edited the Classical Review, which ranges over the whole field of classical scholarship.

None of this, however, distracted him from the students in his department. In later life Alex enjoyed recounting how, while his headmaster in Edinburgh had warned pupils against behaving “like Glasgow keelies”, on coming west Alex had found Glaswegians to be “the nicest people in the world”. He got on well with his students and they appreciated his sympathy and help. Indeed among them he found his wife, Jane, who joined him over the years in regularly entertaining colleagues and students at home, something uncommon then, and much valued. Alex’s humanity proved invaluable also when for many years he was a senior adviser of studies and admissions officer for the faculty of arts.

There was nevertheless a shadow over most British classical departments by the 1980s. The gradual collapse of classical languages in schools drastically reduced student numbers. In Glasgow the ordinary class of Greek fell steadily from 47 students in 1960 to 21 in 1970, with a low of eight in 1971.

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The introduction of Beginners’ Greek classes, requiring extra dedication, was only a partial remedy. Yet in the wider world, interest in classical subjects, whether in novels, plays, films or television, was burgeoning. The answer for the department proved to be the introduction of Greek Civilisation classes, with texts read in translation, which proved to be widely popular.

Intended at first as one-off interest classes in first year only, the quality of work achieved in them by the students justified the introduction of Honours Classical Civilisation in 1988. Alex was key to these developments. His lucid and entertaining lectures on Greek epic and drama stimulated student interest and led them to seek Honours.

In 1988 also, with small departments urged to form larger units, the historically distinct departments of Greek and Humanity (Latin) united. Alex led the new department of classics from 1991 to 1997 and was awarded a personal chair in Greek. His eminence was recognised by a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1995.

Through all this, Alex remained a man of manifold interests and activities. He was an accomplished violinist in the university orchestra for more than 40 years. Initiated on the Pentlands in youth, in maturity he enjoyed climbing greater hills with colleagues and children and grandchildren (and a succession of agreeable family dogs).

(Image: Glasgow University)

As secretary and then chairman of the Scottish Hellenic Society he fostered friendship and understanding between Greeks and Scots in Glasgow. Above all, as an active churchman, he gave copious time to Cadder parish church where he taught in the Sunday school, sang in the choir and served as session clerk in for ten years. (His New Testament knowledge was invaluable when the Greek department was asked to take over the teaching of New Testament Greek for a decade from 1984).

His retirement in 1999 brought an immense concourse of former students and friends to wish him well, and he was honoured in 2006 by a Festschrift edited by two distinguished former research students. He continued to publish, and lecture abroad to international conferences, particularly in Italy, where he was always welcome. He and Jane now enjoyed the opportunity to travel widely, in five continents.

He was at last able to follow up a childhood fascination with polar exploration by sailing in both Arctic and Antarctic waters. But what meant most to him was the welfare and happiness of his family, to whom he was a constantly supportive presence.

He is survived by his wife Jane, his children Margaret and David, and his granddaughters Rebecca, Sarah, Catriona and Isobel.

RONALD KNOX

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