Agathe Henriette Franziska Thornton (née Schwarzschild; 20 November 1910 – 21 October 2006) was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

academic specialising in

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

studies. She was born in Germany and moved to New Zealand in 1947. She taught in the classics department of the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate u ...

from 1948, eventually being appointed

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of classics, until her retirement in 1975.

Early life

Thornton was born Agathe Schwarzschild on 20 November 1910. Her father was the

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Karl Schwarzschild Karl Schwarzschild (; 9 October 1873 – 11 May 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer. Schwarzschild provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-r ...

(1873-1916), her mother Else Schwarzschild

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Rosenbach; and she had two younger brothers, the German-American physicist

Martin Schwarzschild Martin Schwarzschild (May 31, 1912 – April 10, 1997) was a German-American astrophysicist. Biography Schwarzschild was born in Potsdam into a distinguished German Jewish academic family. His father was the physicist Karl Schwarzschild and ...

(1912-1997), and Alfred Schwarzschild (1914-1944). While living in Germany she studied at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. In 1933 she moved to the United Kingdom, fleeing

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

because of Jewish heritage on her father's side. There she studied at

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sid ...

, supported by the astronomer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...

, and with financial aid from an anonymous donor who was later identified as

Sir Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumi ...

. At the outbreak of World War II she avoided

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

on the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

thanks to support from W. H. M. Greaves, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, who stood

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries ...

for her. In Scotland she met and married the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister Harry Thornton.

Academic career

Thornton published her first academic article in 1945 while living in

Newmachar Newmachar is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland about 10 miles (16 km) to the north-west of Aberdeen. The settlement has a long history previously being known as Summerhill within the parish of New Machar, later being renamed Newmachar. S ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

. In 1947 her family moved to New Zealand, and from 1948 onwards both Agathe and her husband Harry taught as lecturers at the

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. Her appointment was the occasion for overturning a university prohibition on hiring married women with children. In 1970 she published her best-known book, ''People and themes in Homer's Odyssey''. After retirement in 1975 she continued publishing in the field of classics, while also learning the Māori language for the purpose of scholarship. In 1986 she presented the Macmillan Brown Lectures at the University of Otago on the theme 'Maori oral literature as seen by a classicist'. These lectures were published the following year in a book of the same title. Her subsequent research publications were in the field of Māori studies. These included new editions of Māori oral literature (''Te Uamairangi's lament for his house'', 1986; ''The story of Maui by Te Rangikaheke'', 1992), studies of Māori cosmological myths (''Ancient Maori cosmologies from the Wairarapa'', 1998; ''The birth of the universe. Te whānautanga o te ao tukupū'', 2004), and articles on linguistics and oral narrative techniques.

Works

* 1945
'The Hebrew conception of speech as a creative energy.'
''The Hibbert journal'' 44: 132-134. * 1962 (with Harry Thornton and A. A. Lind). ''Time and style: a psycho-linguistic essay in classical literature''. London: Methuen. * 1962. 'A Catullan quotation in Virgil's Æneid book VI." ''Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association'' (now ''Journal of language, literature and culture'') 17: 77-79. * 1963. 'Why do the suitors feast in the house of Odysseus?' ''Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association'' (now ''Journal of language, literature and culture'') 20: 341-345. * 1965. 'Horace's ode to Calliope (III,4).' ''Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association'' (now ''Journal of language, literature and culture) 23: 96-102. * 1969. 'A Roman view of the universe in the first century BC.' ''Prudentia'' 1.1: 2-13. * 1970. ''People and themes in Homer's Odyssey''. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. * 1976. ''The living universe: gods and men in Virgil's Aeneid''. ''Mnemosyne'' supplement 46. Leiden: Brill. * 1978. 'Once again, the duals in book 9 of the ''Iliad''." ''Glotta'' 56.1/2: 1-4. * 1984. ''Homer's Iliad: its composition and the motif of supplication''. Hypomnemata 81. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. * 1984. 'The story of the woman brought back from the underworld.' ''The journal of the Polynesian Society'' 93.3: 295-314. * 1985. 'Two features of oral style in Maori narrative.' ''The journal of the Polynesian Society'' 94.2: 149-176. * 1986 (editor). ''Te Uamairangi's lament for his house''. Christchurch: University of Canterbury. * 1986 (with Ray B. Harlow). ''A name & word index to Ngā Mōteatea''. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. * 1987. ''Maori oral literature as seen by a classicist''. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. * 1988. 'A comparison of the time-notion and of appositional style in Homer and in ancient Maori.' ''Prudentia'' 20.2: 4-19. * 1989. 'Some reflections on traditional Maori carving.' ''The journal of the Polynesian Society'' 98.2, 147-166. * 1992 (editor). ''The story of Maui by Te Rangikaheke''. Christchurch: University of Canterbury. * 1998. ''Ancient Maori cosmologies from the Wairarapa''. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. * 1998. 'Do ''a'' and ''o'' categories of "possession" in Maori express degrees of tapu?' ''The journal of the Polynesian Society'' 107.4: 381-383. * 2004. ''The birth of the universe. Te whānautanga o te ao tukupū''. Auckland: Reed Publishing.

References

Classics educators New Zealand classical scholars 20th-century New Zealand writers New Zealand women writers Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to New Zealand Academic staff of the University of Otago Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge 1910 births {{DEFAULTSORT:Thornton, Agathe 2006 deaths