author
E. F. M. (Edward Felix Mendelssohn) Benecke
1870–1895
A gifted young classicist, translator, and poet, he published striking work on Latin and Greek literature before his life was cut short in his twenties. His books show a sharp scholarly mind paired with a real love of the ancient world.
1 Audiobook
Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry A fragment printed for the use of scholars
by E. F. M. (Edward Felix Mendelssohn) Benecke
About the author
Born in 1870, Edward Felix Mendelssohn Benecke wrote under the shortened form E. F. M. Benecke. Surviving library records connect him with a remarkable burst of work in classics and literary scholarship during the early 1890s, including Poetarum Latinorum Index, a translation of Appian's Civil Wars, Book I, and his English translation of Domenico Comparetti's Vergil in the Middle Ages.
His work ranged from reference tools for students to ambitious literary criticism and translation. After his death, additional material appeared in print, including Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry and The Cross Beneath the Ring, and Other Poems, suggesting both strong academic promise and a parallel life as a poet.
He died in 1895, only about twenty-five years old. Because so little biographical material survives online, he remains known mainly through his books, which preserve the voice of a brilliant young scholar whose career ended far too soon.