I was informed today that Bill Harris passed away early on Sunday. I’m sure that many of you were influenced by his writings and resources aimed at autodidacts; he will be greatly missed. If you are not familiar with his works, they are available at his website.
Very sad news. I was worried about his second round of cancer treatment. Only a few weeks ago he sent me this, The long voyage back to the Odyssey, part of his continuing interest in bringing poetry off the page and back into people’s voices. Part of mail from him last month,
Good to hear from you, Will. I am continuing with the acoustic poetry
work, a few more things to work out in the home studio recording but I am
getting there, conversions and compressions and mp3 and m3u to stream. But
this opens new doors, my Sappho translation I has been used in a lot of legal
and illegal places, I am thinking how to do it acoustically, not only
English but the Greek also with my own (modern…how else?) intonations.
Aoidoi.org would never have existed without his encouragement.
How did you hear? Is there some public notice?
Having stumbled across and then been caught up in his extremely interesting writings, I too mourn his passing.
This saddens me, as I over some years have found great pleasure in his writings and have been meaning to write to him (what would have been rather pointless fan-mail). Now I shall be even more prone to honour the memory of an inspiration by reading his articles.
I collected all his essays from his site. So sad to hear this…
An all too brief obit: http://www.addisonindependent.com/node/1942
Well, this is nice to read:
Bill truly enjoyed sharing with all of you, and he greatly appreciated the contact he had with so many of you from around the world, especially in his latter years. We invite you to continue using and enjoying his web site. Bill Harris’ web site will be maintained on the Internet permanently as part of the digital archives of Middlebury College.
I’m glad they decided to do this. I hope someone will make arrangements for his “Intelligent Person’s Guide to Latin,” whether continuing to sell it, or by putting it back online for public use.
Does anyone know where/how to track down a copy of this book? I am really enjoying the online version at http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Alternative_Grammars/index.html#William_Harris’_Grammar_Content and would love to see the full-blown one.