Lesson plan
Ivan Mortimer Linforth
Ivan Mortimer Linforth (15 September 1879, San Francisco – 15 December 1976, Berkeley, California) was an American scholar, Professor of Greek at University of California, Berkeley. According to the Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists he was "one of the great Hellenists of his time". He is best known for his book The Arts of Orpheus (1941), in which he analysed a large number of sources for Orphism and Orphic literature. His work is noted for its thoroughly sceptical approach to the evidence, attempting to the repudiate the notions of a coherent Orphism put forward by earlier scholars. His conclusion was that there was no exclusively "Orphic" system of belief in Ancient Greece. His work had an impact on the scholarship of Orphism, with Eric R. Dodds writing in 1951 that due to Linforth "[t]he edifice reared by an ingenious scholarship upon these foundations remains for me a house of dreams".
Article summary
Ivan Mortimer Linforth (15 September 1879, San Francisco – 15 December 1976, Berkeley, California) was an American scholar, Professor of Greek at University of California, Berkeley. According to the Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists he was "one of the great Hellenists of his time". He is best known for his book The Arts of Orpheus (1941), in which he analysed a large number of sources for Orphism and Orphic literature. His work is noted for its thoroughly sceptical approach to the evidence, attempting to the repudiate the notions of a coherent Orphism put forward by earlier scholars. His conclusion was that there was no exclusively "Orphic" system of belief in Ancient Greece. His work had an impact on the scholarship of Orphism, with Eric R. Dodds writing in 1951 that due to Linforth "[t]he edifice reared by an ingenious scholarship upon these foundations remains for me a house of dreams".
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.