Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatiacl Treatises, from Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period

by Eleanor Dickey

Overview

Ancient greek sholarship constitutes a precious resource for classicists, but one that is underutilized because graduate students and even mature scholars lack familiarity with its conventions. The peculiarities of scholarly Greek and the lack of translations or scholarly aids often discourages readers from exploiting the large body of commentaries, scholia, lexica, and grammatical treatises that have been preserved on papyrus and via the manuscript tradition. Now, for the first time, there is an introduction to such scholarship that will enable students and scholars unfamiliar with this material to use it in their work. Ancient Greek Scholarship includes detailed discussion of the individual ancient authors on whose works scholia, commentaries, or single-author lexica exist, together with explanations of the probable sources of that scholarship and the ways it is now used, as well as descriptions of extant grammatical works and general lexica. These discussions, and the annotated bibliography of more than 1200 works, also include evaluations of the different texts of each work and of a variety of electronic resources.

This book not only introduces readers to ancient scholarship, but also teaches them how to read it. Here readers will find a detailed, step-by-step introduction to the language, a glossary of over 1500 grammatical terms, and a set of more than 200 passages for translation, each accompanied by commentary. The commentaries offer enough help to enable undergraduates with as little as two years of Greek to translate most passages with confidence; in addition, readers are given aids to handling the ancient numerical systems, understanding the references found in works of ancient scholarship, and using an apparatus criticus (including an extensive key to the abbreviations used in an apparatus). Half the passages are accompanied by a key, so that the book is equally suitable for those studying on their own and for classes with graded homework.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195312935
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/05/2007
Series:	Society for Classical Studies Classical Resources , #7
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	9.18(w) x 6.51(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

Eleanor Dickey is Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Preface1. Introduction to Ancient Scholarship2. Scholia, Commentaries, and Lexica on Specific Literary Works2.1. Archaic and Classical Poetry2.2. Classical Prose2.3. Hellenistic Literature2.4. Literature of the Roman Period3. Other Scholarly Works3.1. Grammatical Treatises3.2. Lexica3.3. Other Types of Work4. Introduction to Scholarly Greek5. Reader5.1. Texts with Key5.2. Key to 5.15.3. Texts without Key6. Glossary7. Annotated Bibliography7.1. List of Abbreviations7.2. List of ReferencesAppendicesA. Hints for Finding Works on Ancient Scholarship in Library CatalogsB. Hints for Using FacsimilesIndices

Editorial Reviews

"This book fills a deep need.... The rest of us...will be grateful that a competent and knowledgeable scholar has compiled such a useful guide to such an important yet intractable body of material."--Kathleen McNamee, The Classical Review

"This fine manual provides valuable guidance for the trained scholar. Dickey provides succinct accounts of the scholia, commentaries, and lexia that survive for individual authors from Homer through the Second Sophistic; she follows this with a similar survey on general grammatical treatises, lexica, and other scholarly works. Recommended." --CHOICE

"Any serious student of Greek will want to possess [Ancient Greek Scholarship].... No similar book exists, probably because anyone who attempted it would be advised that it was impossible. Yet it was always a desideratum, since most students doing research will end up looking at scholia, without always knowing what they have before them. The writer has show extraordinary courage in undertaking an Herculean task.... This book is successfully designed for what it seeks to achieve, viz., to help students over the rather steep learning curve so that they can operate on their own in finding and reading. I would certainly be happy to use it in a seminar and recommend it to others, and not only because it has no competition."--William Slater, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

From the Publisher