Murray, Gilbert

Gilbert Murray, (born January 2, 1866, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia—died May 20, 1957, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England), British classical scholar whose translations of the masters of ancient Greek drama—Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes—brought their works to renewed popularity on the contemporary stage.

Murray became professor of Greek at Glasgow University at age 23 and in 1908 regius professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, where he remained until his retirement in 1936. Between 1904 and 1912 he personally directed many of the productions that made Greek theatre once more a living art. By translating into rhymed rather than blank verse, he attempted to revive the rhythmic quality of Greek poetry. Murray also applied insights from the emergent science of anthropology to his other scholarly studies, thus broadening the understanding of Homer and of the older forms of Greek religion. His many works in this vein include The Rise of the Greek Epic (1907) and Five Stages of Greek Religion (2nd ed.; revised and enlarged, 1925).