John V. Cody

I was sorry to learn today that John V. Cody passed away a few years ago. When my wife was an undergrad at Northwestern, he was a nontenured classics professor there. She took a class from him on Rand's novels, analyzed from a classicist's perspective. He was particularly keen on her classical allusions and her use, as he saw it, of literary ring structure. Some of his perspective ended up in his article, "Ayn Rand's Promethean Heroes", which appeared in Reason Magazine, in the November 1973 issue. She also took an independent study class with him on Aristotle's Metaphysics.

He was indirectly responsible for my marriage. In 1973 he arranged a showing of the film version of the Fountainhead at Northwestern. I was an undergrad at U of I Chicago, but took the "L" up to Evanston. I met Marsha at the open discussion afterwards in the cafeteria.

He had to leave Northwestern when they cut back their classics department. He worked at Cato for a while, then left, at which point we lost contact with him. But I see from the memorial article that he also went on to teach at University of San Francisco.

I offer his spirit continuing gratitude
for helping me meet this girl with attitude.