Bruno Snell

Who was Bruno Snell?

Bruno Snell was a German classical philologist. From 1931 to 1959 he held a chair for classical philology at the University of Hamburg where he established the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae research centre in 1944.

After studying law and economics at University of Edinburgh and University of Oxford, Snell gained interest in classical studies and finally changed his major to classical philology. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1922.

Snell served as the inaugural president of the Mommsen Society from 1950–1954. In 1953, the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, an institution promoting research and postgraduate education in the field of European integration, was founded on Snell's initiative. Since 1989, the Mommsen Society awards the Bruno Snell Prize to young classical scholars.

His book, The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought argues that the development of Greek literature from Homer to Aristophanes and Plato shows a gradual discovery of the inner mental life, a developing understanding that humans have a unique and individual inner world of thought.