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Mar 25, 2010
Sir Kenneth Dover, a distinguished historian of Greek culture who gained fame by admitting his wish to kill a troublesome colleague, has died at 89.
Dover died in a hospital in Cupar, Scotland, St Andrews University announced, without disclosing the cause of death.
Dover shockingly admitted his loathing for Trevor Aston, a fellow historian at Corpus Christi College in Oxford University, in his 1994 autobiography, “Marginal Comment.” Aston, according to Dover, had become an embarrassment because of his drunken and irrational behavior.
In a brilliant academic career capped by his 1978 election as president of the Royal Academy, Dover caused ripples with candid work on sexuality.
His 1968 commentary on Aristophanes’ play “Clouds” elucidated the sexual jokes in the text. Ten years later, he produced “Greek Homosexuality,” in which his liberal attitude was ahead of the times.
“No argument which purports to show that homosexuality in general is natural or unnatural, healthy or morbid, legal or illegal, in conformity with God’s will or contrary to it, tells me whether any particular homosexual act is morally right or morally wrong,” Dover wrote.
“No act is sanctified, and none is debased, simply by having a genital dimension.”
Dover was on the faculty of St Andrews University from 1955 to 1976 before taking the Oxford appointment (1976-86) and was chancellor of St Andrews from 1981 to 2005.
from AP and WiG reports
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