IN MEMORIAM
Michael C. J. Putnam
The Brown Classics community mourns the loss of Michael Putnam, who died on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, in Maine. Putnam was a mainstay of Brown, Brown Classics, and the wider Classics community, for sixty-five years. After earning the A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard, he spent one year at Smith College, then joined the Brown faculty in 1960, retiring in 2008. He helped shape the modern complexions of several departments at Brown, not just Classics, but also Comparative Literature, Classical Archaeology, and Early Modern Studies, all of which he served as faculty, mentor, and friend. He also served the wider scholarly world in countless ways: as Acting Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, and, successively, as a Rome Prize Fellow, Resident, and Mellon Professor in Charge of the Classical School at the American Academy in Rome. He became a Trustee of the Academy in 1991 and a Life Trustee in 2010, receiving the Academy’s Centennial Medal and the Trustees' Medal in, respectively, 2009 and 2010. Michael was elected a director of the American Philological Association (now the Society for Classical Studies) in 1972 and served the Association as President; delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies; Financial Trustee; as a member of its Development Committee; and as co-chair of its Gateway Campaign Committee.
Michael’s scholarly distinction and reach was unparalleled: he received the American Philological Association's Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit in 1971 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2013. He inaugurated the Townsend Lectures at Cornell in 1985; was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study; and a Visiting Scholar for Phi Beta Kappa. He also gave the Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin, and in 2009 inaugurated the Amsterdam Virgil Lectures at the University of Amsterdam. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a Member of the American Philosophical Society; and received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was also a member of Italy's Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, and earned its first Medaglia alla Carriera in 2024. From 1967 to 1987 he was Sole Trustee of the Lowell Observatory, and for nearly thirty years was a member of the Selections Committee of the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard. He served as Trustee of Bay Chamber Concerts for three decades, and from 2013-16 he was Trustee of the Vergilian Society of America, from which he received the Alexander G. McKay Prize in 2009. Among many on which he served, Michael was a member of the editorial boards of Arion and Vergilius.
Michael was a prolific scholar of unusual reach, depth, and productivity, writing on classical, medieval, and humanistic Latin language and literatures, and in multiple venues, including commentaries, compendia, translations, and monographs. His books include The Poetry of the Aeneid (1965); Virgil's Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues (1970); Tibullus: A Commentary (1973); Virgil's Poem of the Earth (1979); Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (1982); Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (1986); Virgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and Influence (1995); Virgil's Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid (1998); Horace's Carmen Saeculare: Ritual Magic and the Poet's Art (2000); Maffeo Vegio: Short Epics (2004); Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (2006); The Vergilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (coedited with Jan Ziolkowski; 2008); Jacopo Sannazaro: The Latin Poetry (2009); A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition (co-edited with Joseph Farrell; 2010); The Humanness of Heroes: Studies in the Conclusion of Virgil's Aeneid (2011); The Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition (with Rodney Dennis; 2012), and, most recently, The Poetic World of Statius’ Silvae (with Antony Augoustakis and Carole Newlands; 2023). He was also the author of articles and reviews too numerous to mention.
Michael was a devoted, tireless teacher at all levels of instruction. He regularly taught intermediate Greek, in addition to large courses on broad themes in ancient literature and more focused courses in Latin, to undergraduates and graduates alike. In 2003 he received the University's John Rowe Workman Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. After his retirement Michael remained active in our department, visiting often, looking after us all, and co-directing a senior thesis as recently as 2022.
Michael was predeceased by his partner of many decades, Kenneth Gaulin, but leaves behind a large and loving family, including a sister, Mrs. Mary (Polly) Chatfield, and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews, in addition to countless colleagues and friends here and around the world.
His loss is immeasurable, and inexpressible.