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Charles Segal (classicist)

American classical philologist (1936–2002)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ1066038 ↗
Source-derived summary

Charles Paul Segal (March 19, 1936 — January 1, 2002) was an American classicist renowned for his application of critical theory to ancient texts. Although his work spanned a variety of Latin and Greek genres, he is best known for his work on Greek tragedy. His most influential work is Tragedy and Civilization: an Interpretation of Sophocles (1981), in which he presents a structuralist approach to Greek theatre.

Career

Segal graduated from Harvard University in 1957 and, four years later, was awarded a doctorate from the same institution for a 900-page thesis on the philosopher Democritus. He held academic positions at Brown University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, before returning to his alma mater in 1990. There, he served as the Walter C. Klein Professor of Classics until his death in 2002.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Charles Segal (classicist)” is american classical philologist (1936–2002). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Charles, Segal and classicist, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1936, 2002, 1981, 1957—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936-03-19. For this dossier, Charles, Segal and classicist is the immediate research focus.
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The phrase “american classical philologist (1936–2002)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1066038. VIAF identifies the subject as 262725472. The Library of Congress control number is n80087998. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2002, 1981 and 1957.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Charles Segal (classicist)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.