A commemorative volume: In memoriam Gerhard Huber
- hugo2825
- 25. Jan.
- 3 Min. Lesezeit
This volume brings together nineteen literary, philological, and cultural-historical essays by Gerhard Huber, originally published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the 1980s . They are primarily book reviews, supplemented by a few short reports from literary colloquia.
Gerhard Huber was a classical philologist as knowledgeable as he was passionate, and his perspective extended far beyond his core field. The first part of the volume contains reflections on Greek and Roman antiquity—for example, on the Sophists, Homer's Odyssey, Virgil, and Cicero. This scholar of antiquity was also a passionate and accomplished Romance philologist. This is evidenced by the eight further contributions in the first part of the volume on Marcel Proust, with whom the scholar, who died in 2016, engaged intensively throughout his life. The collection also offers much of interest on Dumas, Stendhal, Madame de Sévigné, Chateaubriand, and even Casanova. Huber also takes us on excursions into music—he was himself an enthusiastic pianist—to Mozart and Beethoven, to opera, and to film. Furthermore, we follow him into other linguistic and cultural regions, such as Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, whose connection to classical antiquity he illuminates brilliantly. References to painting from different eras are also included.
The gifted high school professor
The clear focus on each topic and the concise linguistic presentation of these nineteen literary digressions are compelling. As a long-time teacher of Greek and Latin at the Gymnasium in Olten, Gerhard Huber considered the analytical teaching of ancient texts his primary educational mission, aiming to guide his students toward precise thinking. Instead of relying on a dictionary translation, he preferred to ask: "What does this word talk about, what does it speak of?" This approach to the meaning of a word may have seemed unusual, even strange, to many students at first. But they soon understood: the full meaning of a Latin word, due to the vast temporal distance and cultural divergence, cannot be reduced to a single translated term. A tabula, for example, is indeed a table; but the ancient Roman understanding of every object was not necessarily the same as ours today. And it was probably only later that many realized how strongly Gerhard Huber's teaching was influenced by the spirit of antiquity. Instead of frontal, didactic instruction, he posed targeted questions, as in the Socratic method (or the method attributed to Socrates by Plato), colloquially known as the midwife's method, and allowed the students to arrive at their own understanding through dialogue. Starting with the individual word, the talented high school teacher succeeded in broadening the perspective on antiquity holistically, thereby sensitizing his students to cultural history, expanding their horizons, and intellectually challenging them. It is therefore not surprising that even students without a particular affinity for classical languages followed Gerhard Huber's lessons, which were often seasoned with a touch of subtle humor, with great interest. Huber's view of antiquity opened up new worlds for them. They understood their teacher as an enriching mediator between antiquity and the present, and they highly valued his truly exceptional human kindness and approachability.
Voices from friends and professional life
Huber's observations are complemented in the second part of the book by contributions from his circle of friends and his professional environment, which also bring us closer to the author on a personal level. We get to know Gerhard Huber, for example, as a sociable, philanthropic person and a talented cook, or, unsurprisingly, as an avid reader.
Considerations of timeless validity
The editor of this volume, Peter Schnyder, was a long-time colleague of Gerhard Huber at the Gymnasium in Olten before being appointed professor at the University of Mulhouse. He deserves credit for reminding us of, indeed preserving, Gerhard Huber's high qualities as a scholar, teacher, and human being. Schnyder prefaces the German texts with a French summary. This will be of particular interest to those in France, as Huber maintained a second residence on the Rue de Sorbonne in Paris and actively participated in its social life. And, as fate would have it, he lived in the same building as Jane Birkin, as he once revealed with a touch of mischief.
The commemorative volume edited by Peter Schnyder thus remains a lasting legacy of the deceased, extending far beyond the borders of Switzerland. Huber's collected essays, first published some forty years ago, are of timeless interest, have lost none of their validity, and are therefore well worth reading again today. In the spirit of the famous verse in Horace's Odes (on whom the learned classical philologist from Zollikon once wrote his dissertation), we exclaim: O Gerharde! Monumentum exegisti!
Gerhard Huber, From the Acropolis to Zollikon . 19 literary excursions . Edited by Peter Schnyder. Paris 2020.
HMS - Merlin
25/01/2022