Of Farming and Classics: A Memoir

by David Grene

A fiercely independent thinker, colorful storyteller, and spirited teacher, David Grene devoted his life to two farming, which he began as a boy in Ireland and continued into old age; and classics, which he taught for several decades that culminated in his translating and editing, with Richmond Lattimore, of The Complete Greek Tragedies. In this charming memoir, which he wrote during the years leading up to his death in 2002 at the age of eighty-nine, Grene weaves together these interests to tell a quirky and absorbing story of the sometimes turbulent and always interesting life he split between the University of Chicago - where he helped found the Committee on Social Thought - and the farm he kept back in Ireland. Charting the path that took him from Europe to Chicago in 1937, and encompassing his sixty-five-year career at the university, Grene's book draws readers into the heady and invigorating climate of his time there. And it is elegantly balanced with reflections stemming from his work on the farm where he hunted, plowed and regularly traveled on horseback to bring his cows home for milking. Grene's form and humor are quite his own, and his brilliant storytelling will enthrall anyone interested in the classics, rural Ireland, or twentieth-century intellectual history, especially as it pertains to the University of Chicago.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2006

About the author

David Grene (1913-2002) taught classics for many years at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

[Leo W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

On farming, he is Wendell Berry, with a lighter touch. On academics, he is Donald Kagan, again with a (far) lighter touch. A genuine pleasure.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fortunate to have experienced the lectures of this great teacher and classicist. I first encountered his translations of ancient Greek dramas when I was in college. He had already been teaching at the University of Chicago since before I was born. This memoir is a personal account of his life with an emphasis on education, but farming as well. I was taught, or at least led in classes at the Basic Program of Liberal Education of The University of Chicago, by instructors who were taught by David Grene and his spirit lives on in their work and teaching. This memoir demonstrates that genial spirit of love of life and learning. A spirit that David Grene exuded with every word and breath in his lectures and classes and life.

[Georgia Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

In college, I was introduced to the "classics": Homer, Euripedes, Herodutus, Plato, etc. David Grene was a scholar on the subject and a prolific translator of these wonderful works. In a curious twist, considering my past and present interests, he was also a farmer in his native Ireland. In this wonderful memoir, Grene connects the earth and academic pursuits in a book seemingly written just for me.