Richard J H Matthews

Richard J H Matthews (born 1942), MA (Latin and Greek) (Auck) 1966, MA (Oxon) (Merton College); PhD (Berne) (1991) is a New Zealand classical scholar, expert in classical philology, author and poet.
Background
Matthews was born in Dunedin but was educated in Auckland at where he won a University National scholarship in 1960. He was a Cistercian monk in 1960 and 1961, before studying Classics at the University of Auckland. In 1964 he won the John Mulgan Prize for Proficiency in Greek at an Advanced level at Auckland University. In 1965 he gained a Senior scholarship in Greek and Latin and, in 1967, a New Zealand Post-Graduate scholarship to Merton College, Oxford. He taught briefly in Italy and Germany, before later settling in Italian Switzerland Lugano where he taught English (and very briefly Greek) from 1972 until 1994.
Publications
Matthews has published widely in academic journals in his field. In New Zealand he has published a book New Zealand poetry based on classical models along with the Greek or Latin texts of those models. The prominent contemporary poet represented in the collection include Fleur Adcock (12 poems modeled or inspired by the Greek poets, Moiro of Byzantium (a poetess), Agathias Scholasticus, Leonidas of Tarentum, and Marcus Argentarius and on two Latin poets, Horace and Propertius), James K Baxter (13 poems after Catullus and Horace (the odes)). Other modern poets who used classical models and who are represented include Denis Glover, R. A. K. Mason, C K Stead and four earlier New Zealand classical poets, David More, , Charles Howden, G. Lincoln Lee and A. F. T. Chorlton. Matthews own poetry is represented by his take on Ode 1,17 of Horace "set in the Waitakere hills". Matthews has closely studied Hellenistic poetry, notably, Bion of Smyrna about whom he has written.

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