{{Short description|American classical scholar (1931–2014)}} {{Infobox person | name = Robert Paul Sonkowsky | birth_date = 16 September 1931 | birth_place = Appleton, Wisconsin | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2014|11|16|1931|9|16}} | death_place = North Oaks, Minnesota }}

'''Robert Sonkowsky''' (September 16, 1931 - November 16, 2014)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/50117/|title=Obituary for Robert P. Sonkowsky|website=Startribune.com|accessdate=12 August 2017|archive-date=24 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924144836/http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/50117/|url-status=dead}}</ref> was a professor emeritus of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. He was an authority on Latin rhetoric and the pronunciation of Golden Age Latin. His bachelor's degree was from Lawrence College (1954), and his PhD from the University of North Carolina (1958). He was an Honorary Member of the Center for Chronobiology in the Mayo Building, Medical School.

Sonkowsky was a leading authority on and a performer of oral renditions of classical texts. He made the album ''Homer: The Death of Patroclus - Chapter XVI of the Iliad'' with Folkways Records as part of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Numerous other recordings of his in classical Greek and Latin are available on the Internet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=31365|title=Smithsonian Folkways - Not found|website=Smithsonian Folkways Recordings|accessdate=12 August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Latin.htm|title=Listen to: Latin|website=Rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu|accessdate=12 August 2017}}</ref>

==Selected publications== *''Performance of Literature in Historical Perspective'' ed. D. Thompson et al. (Univ. Press of America 1983) Chapters 1 and 2 (pp.&nbsp;1–65): "Oral Performance and Ancient Greek Lit." and "Oral Interpretation of Classical Latin Literature." *"Euphantastik Memory and Delivery in the Classical Rhetorical Tradition," ''Rhetoric'' 78 ed. Brown and Steinmann, 1979, pp.&nbsp;375–3?? *"Critical Edition of the Latin Rhetorical Treatise ''De Compositione'' by Gasparino Barzizza of Bergamo", ''American Philosophical Society: Year Book'', 1962, p. 629. *"Delivery in Ancient Rhetorical Theory," ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'' 90 (1959), pp.&nbsp;256–274.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{DBCS}} *[http://cnes.cla.umn.edu/Faculty/Sonkowsky.html Home page of Professor Sonkowsky] *[http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid1.htm Sonkowsky reading from Book One of the ''Aeneid''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002001956/http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/aeneid1.htm |date=2012-10-02 }} *[http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Latin.htm Society for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature (SORGLL)] Readings of Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Vergil. *[http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=31365 ''Reading Homer and the Death of Patroclus''] *[http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/50117/ Obituary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924144836/http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/50117/ |date=2015-09-24 }}

{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Sonkowsky, Robert}} Category:1931 births Category:2014 deaths Category:American classical scholars Category:University of Minnesota faculty Category:Lawrence University alumni