Name Arthur Way | Education Kingswood School | |
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Died September 25, 1930, Ventnor, United Kingdom Books Longinus on the Sublime: The Greek Text, The Iliad Of Homer - Done Into English Verse - | ||
Arthur Sanders Way (13 February 1847 – 25 September 1930), was a classical scholar, translator and headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne, Australia.
Arthur Way, son of the Rev. William Way and his wife Matilda, née Francis, was born at Dorking, England. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and graduated M.A. at University of London. From 1870 to 1876 he was classical lecturer at Queen's College, Taunton, vice-master of Kingswood School, 1876 to 1881, and in 1882 became headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne. He had already published his translation of the Odyssey of Homer, and while at Wesley brought out his translation of the Iliad. (See English translations of Homer#Way.)
At Wesley he fostered the teaching of natural science, and also brought in the teaching of commercial principles for boys likely to pursue a business career, but the number of students went down during his period, largely because of the financial depression which began in 1889. He resigned in 1892 and spent most of the rest of his life in translating from the classics. Probably no other translator could compare with Way in fertility and versatility. Way's versions give accurate renderings of the meaning of the originals expressed in vigorous verse. The list of his translations in Miller's Australian Literature includes Odyssey, the Iliad, Euripides, Æschylus, Sophocles, the Epodes of Horace, Vergil's Georgics, the Nibelungenlied, the Chanson de Roland, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, the New Testament Biblical letters of Paul and Hebrews entitled, The Letters of St. Paul to Seven Churches and Three Friends with The Letter to the Hebrews, Aristophanes, Hesiod, Virgil, Lucretius, The Lay of the Nibelung Men, The Song of Roland and others. Way was also the author of Homer (1913), Greek through English (1926), and Sons of the Violet-Crowned, a Tale of Ancient Athens (1929).
Way had been president of the Melbourne Shakespeare Society and a councillor of the Royal Society of Victoria. Way died at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on 25 September 1930.