PhD thesis wins Heidelberg Prize

Sebastian Matzner, who received his PhD in Classics and Comparative Literature from King’s College London in 2012, has been awarded the University of Heidelberg’s Prize for Classical Philology and Literary Theory for his thesis on ‘The Forgotten Trope: Metonymy in Poetic Action’.  Supervised by Professor Michael Silk, Dr Matzner’s dissertation develops a typology of metonymic expressions on the basis of concrete examples from literary texts. The jury awarding the prize was headed by Professor Dr. Jürgen Paul Schwindt (Director of the University of Heidelberg’s Department of Classics).  Professor Schwindt comments “The particular attractiveness of this work lies in the comparative evaluation of ancient and modern poetic texts. The discussion of the consequences which this reassessment of the ‘forgotten trope’ has for the theory and practice of literary translation adds further to the value of the study.”   The official award ceremony is expected to take place towards the end of the winter semester 2013/14.  The award comes with a prize money of €1500 and an offer of publication in Heidelberg’s “Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften” series.

Dr Matzner is currently an early career research fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford.  

For the press release in the original German please see the University of Heidelberg's website.