Denys Page | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 11 May 1908 Reading, Berkshire, England |
| Died | 6 July 1978 (aged 70) Tarset, Northumberland, England |
| Spouse |
Katharine Elizabeth Dohan
(m. 1938) |
| Awards | Kenyon Medal (1969) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Classics |
| Sub-discipline | Ancient Greek literature Textual Criticism |
| Institutions | Christ Church, Oxford Trinity College, Cambridge Jesus College, Cambridge |
| Notable works | Poetae Melici Graeci (1962) |
| Influenced | |
Sir Denys Lionel Page FBA (11 May 1908 – 6 July 1978) was a British classicist and textual critic who served as the 34th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and the 35th Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for his critical editions of the Ancient Greek lyric poets and tragedians.
Coming from a middle-class family in Reading, Page studied classics at Christ Church, Oxford, and served the college as a lecturer for most of the 1930s. He spent the Second World War working on Ultra intelligence material at the Government Code & Cypher School based at Bletchley Park. In 1950, he was elected Regius Chair of Greek at Cambridge which he held until his retirement in 1973. Initially a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Page was appointed master of the university's Jesus College in 1959. He died of lung cancer in 1978.
Having published an edition of the poets Sappho and Alcaeus with fellow Oxford classicist Edgar Lobel, Page went on to write what became for some time the standard edition of the remaining Greek lyric poets, Poetae Melici Graeci (PMG) (1962). His other notable publications include commentaries on Euripides' Medea (1938) and Aeschylus' Agamemnon (1957). In 1971, he was knighted for his services to classical scholarship.