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Rex Warner (9 March 1905 – 24 June 1986) was an English classicist, writer and translator. He is now probably best remembered for ''The Aerodrome'' (1941).〔(Trash Fiction: Review of ''The Aerodrome'' )〕〔Chris Hopkins, ''English Fiction in the 1930s: Language, Genre, History'' Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007 ISBN 0826489389 (pp. 138–57).〕 Warner was described by V. S. Pritchett as "the only outstanding novelist of ideas whom the decade of ideas produced".〔"Rex Warner, 81, Dies; Author and Translator". ''The New York Times'', 17 July 1986〕 ==Biographical sketch== He was born Reginald Ernest Warner in Birmingham, England and brought up mainly in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman.〔"Rex Warner(Obituary)". ''The Times''. 27 June 1986.〕 He was educated at St. George's School in Harpenden, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he associated with W. H. Auden, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender,〔Michael Moorcock, "Introduction" to ''The Aerodrome'', Vintage Classics, 2007. ISBN 9780099511564 (p. ix–xx)〕 and published in ''Oxford Poetry''. He obtained a 1st in Classical Moderations in 1925 and later graduated with a 3rd in English in 1928,〔''Oxford University Calendar 1932''. Oxford University Press, 1932.(pp. 270, 310).〕 he spent time teaching, some of it in Egypt. Warner's debut story, "Holiday", appeared in the ''New Statesman'' in 1930.〔 His first collection, ''Poems'', appeared in 1937. Warner's poem, "Arms in Spain", a satire on German and Italian support for the Spanish Nationalists, has often been reprinted.〔Katharine Bail Hoskins, ''Today the Struggle: Literature and Politics in England during the Spanish Civil War''. University of Texas Press, 1969 (p.230)〕 He was a contributor to ''Left Review''. Warner was a great admirer of Franz Kafka, and his fiction was "profoundly influenced" by Kafka's work.〔 Warner's first three novels all reflect his anti-fascist beliefs; ''The Wild Goose Chase'' is in part a dystopian fantasy of a tyrannical government which is overthrown in a heroic revolution.〔Janet Montefiore. ''Men and Women writers of the 1930s : The Dangerous Flood of History''. Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0415068924 (pp. 16, 170, 201).〕〔John Clute, "Warner, Rex", in ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', edited by Clute and Peter Nicholls. London, Orbit,1994. ISBN 1-85723-124-4 (p.1299-1300).〕 His second novel, ''The Professor'', published around the time of the Nazi Anschluss, is the story of a liberal academic whose compromises with a repressive government lead eventually to his arrest, imprisonment and execution "while attempting to escape"; contemporary reviewers saw parallels with the Austrian leaders Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg.〔〔 Although Warner was initially sympathetic to the Soviet Union, "the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact left him disillusioned with Communism".〔 ''The Aerodrome'' was an allegorical novel whose young hero is faced with the disintegration of his certainties about his loved ones and with a choice between the earthy, animalistic life of his home village and the pure, efficient, emotionally detached life of an airman.〔 ''The Times'' described ''The Aerodrome'' as Warner's "most perfectly accomplished novel".〔 ''Why Was I Killed?'' (1943) was an afterlife fantasy with an anti-war theme.〔 Warner then abandoned contemporary allegory in favour of historical novels about Ancient Greece and Rome, including ''Imperial Caesar'' for which he was awarded the 1960 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. ''Imperial Caesar'' was praised by John Davenport as "delightfully perceptive and funny" and by Storm Jameson as "brilliant, intelligent, continuously interesting. It has everything".〔Advertisement for ''Imperial Caesar'', ''Encounter'' magazine, November 1960, p. 81.〕 ''The Converts'', a novel about Saint Augustine, reflected Warner's own increasing devotion to Christianity.〔 Warner served in the Home Guard during World War Two.〔 From 1945 to 1947 he was in Athens as Director of the British Institute. At that time he was involved in numerous translations of classical Greek and Latin authors. Warner's translation of Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' sold over a million copies.〔 He also translated George Seferis, later a Nobel laureate (''Poems of George Seferis'', 1960). Interviewed for the book ''Authors Take Sides on Vietnam'', Warner argued that the US Army should withdraw from Indochina.〔Cecil Woolf and John Bagguley (editors),''Authors Take Sides on Vietnam'', Peter Owen, 1967,(p.47).〕 Later he was Tallman Professor of Classics at Bowdoin College (1961) and then professor at the University of Connecticut from 1962 for eleven years. He died in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rex Warner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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