Download Literature in the Roman World djvu

An interesting, but dense book, which explores Greek literature in eight essays, from Homer to literature created under Roman rule. This is a work for those who already have some background in Greek literature. Some of the essays were easier going than others because a different scholar wrote each essay. I thought the strongest essays were those on Archaic Greek poetry, the development of drama, and the literature of the philosophers. There was an essay on the historians and concentrated on Herodotus and Thucydides which was good but I thought it too brief. The poetry essay went into detail on the three genres of Greek poetry, as well as the context for their performances. Overall, the essays showed the progression from the reception of oral poetry and epic, to the almost exclusive use of writing. I have only three real complaints about the text, and they relate entirely to personal preference. The print was very small, which made for laborious reading. The authors used direct transcription of Greek names, which is becoming the trend, however, that’s not how some of us learned the names in school. I have always found the use of BCE/CE an irritating conceit and nod toward PC. Regardless of how you annotate the periods, the reason for the demarcation is still the same.

This small book on Greek literature is written for a small audience. On the one hand, this book is not an introduction to ancient literature. It expects a certain amount of reader familiarity with authors and poets of Greece, as well as a tolerance for Greek terms and spellings (e.g. Kallimachos instead of Callimachus). This is only a weakness in that it potentially alienates readers of casual interest. On the other hand, the book never asserts itself as a thorough review of Greek literature for scholars on the topic. Instead, it is written for "those who know a little and would like to know more" about Greek works from Homer to the Roman period. That is to say, it is written for the advanced/advancing student.

With that in mind, this book treats its topic by breaking Greek literature into six or seven genres and assessing the values of each from the perspective of the intended receivers. In other words, this book focuses on the interface between the authors and their ancient audience. In some cases, such as Greek tragedy and comedy, this is a very fruitful and interesting approach, since it guides the student readers in question away from seeing Euripedes or Aristophanes in modern terms and more in terms of "their own" (i.e. classical) expectations and mores. Other chapters, dealing with Greek historians or "wisdom literature," face certain challenges, since the works in question often seem to defy such an approach; indeed, what has made Thucydides and Plato special has been their scope and their universality.

The different chapters on each genre are written by different modern scholars; they are also interwoven and sometimes refer the reader to sections in other chapters, so that this is not merely a collection of essays arranged with a common thread. Although any book which takes such a large scope of literature into its sights is necessarily summary, there is appropriate depth of detail, as well as a brief but useful bibliography for further reading. Even though this book is by no means a comprehensive look at literature in the Greek world, this may be a strength- it treats some scholarly issues in an refreshing way, and leaves it to the reader to find out more. Highly recommended for aspiring Hellenists.

I am totally unable to judge the qualities of the book, but I have been responsible for my wife loosing hers...

it were still priced at the $16.95--the original cover price. I was going to use this for my Roman Civ. class but noticed that Oxford jacked the price up to $36.00. It's great because it provides a survey or Roman literature from the perspective of its historical readers informed by more recent approaches to lit (i.e. not New Criticism--we are classicists afterall, so it takes us a while to warm up to things). The chapters are written by first rate scholars and are informative esp for undergrads.