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Thomas Bulfinch (July 15, 1796 – May 27, 1867His obituary is printed in full in Marie Cleary, “A Book of Decided Usefulness: Thomas Bulfinch’s ‘The Age of Fable,’” The Classical Journal 75.3 (February 1980) (pp. 248-249).) was an American author born in Newton, Massachusetts, known best for Bulfinch's Mythology, a posthumous combination of his three volumes of mythologies.
Bulfinch attended Boston Latin School, Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1814. His main career was with the Merchants' Bank of Boston.
Bulfinch's Mythology is a classic work of popularized mythology, the standard for more than a century and still in print. The compilation, assembled posthumously by Edward Everett Hale, includes various stories belonging to the mythological traditions known as the Matter of Rome, the Matter of Britain and the Matter of France, respectively. Bulfinch wrote in his preface:
"Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation."
The original volume was dedicated to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Bulfinch described it on the title page as an "attempt to popularize mythology and extend the enjoyment of elegant literature". In his preface he outlined his purpose, which was
His obituary noted that the contents were "expurgated of all that would be offensive".
The versions Bulfinch gives for the classical myths are those in Ovid and Virgil. His Norse myths are abridged from a work by Paul Henri Mallet (1730–1807), a professor at Geneva, translated by Bishop Thomas Percy as Northern AntiquitiesIn full, Northern Antiquities: or, a Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the Ancient Danes, And Other Northern Nations; Including Those of Our Own Saxon ancestors. With a translation of the Edda, or system of Rune mythology, and other pieces, from the ancient Islandic tongue. (London, 1770). (London, 1770, often reprinted).
Bulfinch's versions of these myths are still being taught in many American public schools. Marie Sally Cleary, in The Bulfinch Solution: Teaching the Ancient Classics in American Schools (1990), describes the book in the context of "democratizing" classical culture for a wider American Antebellum era readership. The Bulfinch retellings were largely superseded in American high schools by Edith Hamilton's works on mythology, which were based directly on classical Greek texts.Cleary 1980:248.
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