The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVIII. Later National Literature, Part III.
§ 24. William Watson Goodwin
William Watson Goodwin (1831–1912), after his graduation at Harvard in 1851, studied at Göttingen, returned in 1856 as tutor in Greek, and was Eliot Professor of Greek from 1860 until his resignation in 1901. His Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb (1860) has passed through many editions and revisions, and still holds the field as an epitome of classical usage. Its lucid analysis and arrangement and copious citations of its basic material make it both a reference book and a thesaurus. Its results enter more briefly into the Greek Grammar of 1870, which like Moods and Tenses remains in current use after a good half-century. Goodwin also revised Felton’s edition of the Panegyricus of Isocrates (1864), and edited The Clouds (1873) and the collected translation of Plutarch’s Morals, by several hands (1871). The Agamemnon, in his text, was performed at Harvard in 1906. His greatest editions are those of Demosthenes On the Crown (1901) and Against Midias (1906).