Mary Merritt Sale, professor emerita in classics and comparative literature in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, died peacefully under hospice care at her home in Berkeley, Calif., Feb. 8, 2017, from complications of autoimmune disease. She was 87.
Born in New Haven, Conn., in 1929, Sale earned a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy in 1951, a master’s in Greek and Latin in 1954 and a doctorate in Greek, English and Latin in 1958, all from Cornell University. After a year of teaching at Yale University, she joined the Washington University faculty and served as acting chair and then chair of classics from 1960-69.
Sale was appointed full professor in 1975 and received a Founder’s Day Award for excellence in teaching in 1978. She also served as chair of comparative literature from 1981-90. After her retirement in 1995, she was chosen by the Class of 1971 as their Favorite Faculty Member — an honor that especially pleased her.
Sale was an expert on Greek poetry, especially the nature of oral poetry, as well as mythology and tragedy. She was the author of two books, “Sophocles’ Electra” (1973) and “Existentialism and Euripides” (1977), and numerous articles on Homer, oral poetry and Homeric Troy, among other topics. (Her scholarly publications can be found under the names she was known by during her time at Washington University, William M. Sale and Merritt Sale.)
In 1966, Sale completed an original translation of “Oedipus Rex,” which was then staged on campus by director Herbert E. Metz. The cast included writer Stanley Elkin and then-senior Harold Ramis.
“As a lecturer and administrator in the 1960s, Dr. Sale mesmerized classrooms with insights into the psyches of Hesiod’s primeval gods, Euripidean protagonists and Ovidian shape-shifters, making them relevant even in an era of Vietnam War protests,” said Carl W. Conrad, associate professor emeritus of classics. “Solid undergraduate majors from those years went on to graduate work elsewhere and into careers in our field. Others, too, have contributed to the thriving classics department of today, but the energizing endeavors of Dr. Sale in the later decades of the last century have had an enduring impact.”
Sale is survived by her spouse, Anne Peper Perkins; daughter, Elizabeth Sale; sons David Sale and Adam Bilsky; and stepsons Jonathan Perkins, Andrew Perkins and Ben Rain; as well as by seven grandchildren and two brothers, Roger Sale and Kirk Sale.
Donations in her memory may be made to Winter Opera St. Louis, 2322 Marconi Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110.
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