The department announces the death of Peter Burnell, whom many of you will know. The following is a tribute to Peter given by Frank Klaassen before the University Council.
I am here today to celebrate the
life of my friend and colleague, Peter Burnell who died of cancer on the 7th of
May, 2012.
Peter was born and raised in
Cardiff, Wales. He took his BA and MA degrees at the University of Wales before
coming to do a PhD in Classics at the University of Toronto in 1969. He taught
at several universities in Canada and the United States before joining the
Department of Classics here in 1983. He served as Department Head from 1994
until 2000. Subsequently, he moved to the Department of History where he was
Full Professor until the time of his death. He was an internationally respected
scholar; he wrote articles on classical literature and theology, and two books
on St. Augustine, the second of which was written while he lived with cancer.
Raised on the classics from boyhood, Greek and
Latin literature flowed in his veins in a way that they do for few modern
intellectuals, and I never ceased to learn from him. When I asked for his
assistance with translations, Peter’s suggestions were like epiphanies:
unadorned yet poetic and elegant witnesses to the original texts. As a teacher,
Peter was demanding, but this was wound inextricably with his charm, pointed
humour, and his deep commitment to the humanistic enterprise.
In first-year Latin, Peter would routinely begin by putting a few English sentences on the board for the students to translate into Latin. One day a student raised his hand to ask a point of vocabulary:
In first-year Latin, Peter would routinely begin by putting a few English sentences on the board for the students to translate into Latin. One day a student raised his hand to ask a point of vocabulary:
“Professor Burnell, what is the Latin word for
“toga”?
Without hesitating Peter responded “Hmmm. What is
the French for “Je ne sais pas?” He then went on to explain kindly that the
Latin word for “toga” is “toga.”
Peter was a true intellectual and
humanist. He had an insatiable, wide-ranging curiosity and a great moral
passion. One colleague quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald in reference to him: “The
test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in
the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” The
coincidence of many sorts of opposites were somehow resolved in Peter’s mind. He was at once a devout Catholic dismayed by modern
innovation (by which Peter sometimes meant medieval ones) and a great interpreter and student of St. Augustine. At the same
time, he was profoundly engaged by popular culture. He valued truth wherever he
found it, whether in The City of God, or David Lynch’s Eraserhead,
Virgil’s poetry or South Park.
And it was with infectious delight
that he would leap from the miles gloriosus of classical literature to
Flash of the Black Adder television series. Another colleague remarked that at
times Peter reminded him of Woodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, not for the latters
silliness or inanities, but rather for his boyish innocence: “his utterly
charming enthusiasm for, and delight in, things.”
Peter’s many friends were his
family, and in those relationships he also embraced remarkable differences.
Among the closest of these were those
with whom he fundamentally, sometimes tumultuously disagreed on the most basic
issues, whether intellectual or professional. This speaks to his
honesty, his intellectual passion and depth of conviction every bit as much as
it speaks to his essential courtesy and civility, his fundamental good
will, and ultimately, his capacity for love. These and friendship were, for
Peter, inseparably wound up with the life of the mind.
I ask you to join me in a moment
of silence to remember and celebrate the life of Professor Peter Burnell.
(Substantial portions of this were drawn from the
suggestions of John Porter and Bill Bartley.)
