Albert Spaulding Cook
Albert Spaulding Cook (October 28, 1925 – July 7, 1998) was a noted American literary critic, poet, classical scholar, teacher and translator. He taught Classics, English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, Western Reserve, the University at Buffalo and Brown University, as well as at various universities abroad. Early life Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, Cook spent much of his early childhood in Ohio and in Massachusetts. In the late 1930s, his family moved to Albany and in 1940 settled in Utica, New York. His parents separated when he was fourteen, his mother at first remaining in Utica and later moving to New York City, and his father moving to Boston. A brother, two years his junior, pursued a career in radio. Education While in high school, Albert Cook ran the school's literary magazine, won an Atlantic Monthly student essay prize, and edited an anthology of Utica area poets. Some of his schoolmates, among them Aaron Rosen and Edwin Dolin, remained lifelong friends and collaborators; another, Carol Rubin, eventually became his wife. A gifted linguist from his earliest years, he learned Latin and taught himself Greek in high school; by the time he reached college, he was