{{Short description|British classical scholar}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Janet Elizabeth Case''' (1863–1937) was a British classical scholar, tutor of ancient Greek, and women's rights advocate.
==Early life and education==
Case was born in Hampstead, London, in 1863, to William Arthur Case and Sarah Wolridge Stansfeld; she was the youngest of their six daughters.<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-51784|title=Case, Janet Elizabeth (1863–1937), classics teacher and journalist|year=2004 |language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/51784|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |access-date=2019-01-22}}</ref> She was educated at Heath Brow, a co-educational school in Hampstead,<ref name=":0" /> and later studied classics at Girton College, Cambridge from 1881 to 1885,<ref>Sutherland, Gillian (2015). ''In Search of the New Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Britain 1870–1914''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 62.</ref> where she obtained a first in Part II of the tripos at a time when women were still denied a full degree from Cambridge;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/at-last-a-degree-of-honour-for-900-cambridge-women-1157056.html|title=At last, a degree of honour for 900 Cambridge women|date=1998-05-31|website=The Independent|language=en|access-date=2019-01-22}}</ref> in 1907 she converted this to a Master of Arts when Trinity College, Dublin began to offer degrees to women who had qualified at Oxford and Cambridge.<ref name=":0" />
In 1884 Case co-founded Girton College's classical club; she was an active participant in Cambridge productions of ancient Greek drama, taking the role of ''Electra'' in a Girton college production of 1883, and Athena in Aeschylus' ''Eumenides'' in the Cambridge Greek Play of 1885.<ref name=":0" /> She was the first female actor in the annual Cambridge Greek Play, an exception to the practice of using only male actors at that time;<ref>Easterling, Pat, 'The early years of the Cambridge Greek Play, 1882-1912', in Stray, Chris (1999, ed.), 27-47, pp. 29-30.</ref> she was the only woman to be a cast-member of the Greek Play until 1950.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cambridgegreekplay.com/plays/1885/eumenides|title=Eumenides {{!}} The Cambridge Greek Play|website=www.cambridgegreekplay.com|access-date=2019-01-22}}</ref> Her performances in the plays made such an impact that she featured, dressed in Greek costume, in two illustrations of the first issue of The Woman's World.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Prins |first1=Yopie |title=The Sexual Politics of Translating Prometheus Bound |journal=Cultural Critique |date=2010 |issue=74 |pages=164–180 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40800633 |issn=0882-4371}}</ref> In her obituary in ''The Times'', Virginia Woolf would later describe Case as "a noble Athena, breaking down the tradition that only men acted in the Greek play."<ref name=":1">Alley, Henry M. (1982). "A Rediscovered Eulogy: Virginia Woolf's 'Miss Janet Case: Classical Scholar and Teacher.'" ''Twentieth Century Literature''. 28:3.</ref>
==Career==
After leaving Cambridge, Case taught Classics from 1887 to 1896 at Maida Vale High School, as well as offering private tuition.<ref name=":0" /> Her support for the engagement of women with education in classical drama continued, as she sponsored the performances of Greek Plays at Bedford College for Women, which became the first women's college to host such a performance in 1887.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Prins |first1=Yopie |title=The Sexual Politics of Translating Prometheus Bound |journal=Cultural Critique |date=2010 |issue=74 |pages=164–180 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40800633 |issn=0882-4371}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title='Iphegenia in Tauris' |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhularchives/3813693981/ |website=RHUL Archives (Flickr) |date=12 August 2009}}</ref> While working as a tutor, she taught Greek to a young Virginia Woolf from 1902 to 1907. After this instruction ended, Case and Woolf developed a close friendship that would last until Case's death in 1937.<ref name=":1" /> Woolf wrote Case's obituary, which was published in ''The Times'' on 22 July 1937.
Case published her translation of ''Prometheus Bound'' by Aeschylus in 1905.<ref>Foster, Finley Melville Kendall (1918). ''English Translations from the Greek: A Bibliographical Survey, Volume 22''. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 8.</ref> Her work on both the ''Prometheus Bound'' and Aeschylean plays more generally was connected to her social activism, as she saw potential for ''Prometheus'' to be seen as a revolutionary text, and also wrote a feminist analysis of women in Aeschylus.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Prins |first1=Yopie |title=The Sexual Politics of Translating Prometheus Bound |journal=Cultural Critique |date=2010 |issue=74 |pages=164–180 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40800633?seq=1 |issn=0882-4371}}</ref>{{rp|172}} The ''Girton Review'' described her translation as "both scholarly and graceful", recognising both Case's expertise and her desire to make the text accessible to a wider audience.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Prins |first1=Yopie |title=The Sexual Politics of Translating Prometheus Bound |journal=Cultural Critique |date=2010 |issue=74 |pages=164–180 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40800633?seq=1 |issn=0882-4371}}</ref>{{rp|173}}
From 1925 to 1937 she wrote a weekly "Country Diary" column for the ''Manchester Guardian'', which was published as a collection in 1939.<ref>Wainwright, Martin. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/30/wildlife “First Eleven,”] ''The Guardian'', 30 August 2008. Retrieved on 16 November 2017.</ref> Suffering from ill health, she had given up teaching in 1915, aged 52; she died of cancer in 1937.<ref name=":0" />
==Activism==
Case became involved in the women's rights movement, thanks to her friend and former Girton classmate Margaret Llewelyn Davies, who served as general secretary of the Co-operative Women's Guild from 1899 to 1921. Case advised the Guild on divorce law reform, publishing a 1912 pamphlet summarising the royal commission's recommendations on divorce and advocating a proposal of the Guild that female assessors should be appointed to the divorce court.<ref name=":0" /> Case also encouraged Virginia Woolf to become involved in the women's rights movement, writing to her in 1910 about the "wrongness of the present state of affairs."<ref>Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, eds. (1975). ''The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume I''. New York: Harcourt. p. 421.</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Case Janet ELizabeth}} Category:1863 births Category:1937 deaths Category:English suffragists Category:English classical scholars Category:English women classical scholars Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Category:English columnists Category:20th-century English women writers Category:20th-century English writers Category:Co-operative Women's Guild Category:British women civil rights activists