GREEK BEYOND GCSE Bloomsbury Academic; 2nd Revised edition edition (10 Aug. 2017) Paperback: 384 pages 978-1474299756 £16.50
JLNavarro Greek Beyond GCSE Taylor 01
This is not a handbook but a really thick volume of 400 pages. It is fully based on the first edition dated in 2008; four chapters remain essentially unchanged but the next three chapters are completely new. As indicated at the beginning, it sets out to be a kind of sequel to Greek to GCSE, but even so the author declares it can be used independently.
In order to write a useful review, I think it would be better to deal with chapters 5, 6, and 7 (the new ones) after presenting a general outlook of such a fine volume.
This is not a book for beginners. The students must have previous knowledge, but in case they have forgotten, they will have the chance of turning back to the foundations of Greek Language. This is an absolutely complete book: grammar, civilisation, literature, texts, vocabulary are to be found all through the volume. Even metrics are available.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are supposed to be recently incorporated to the book. They mostly offer lots of texts quite suitable for comprehension and translation; chapter 5 focuses on historical texts; chapter 6 moves to specific texts from Thucydides adding a sample of oratory extracts mostly from Lysias. Chapter 7 moves a step further and tackles tragic verse from Sophocles and Euripides. Chapter 8, to the end, summarises previous chapters including six anthologised texts from Xenophon, Lysias, Thucydides and even Demosthenes, a quite reasonable extract from Against Conon. All the texts as well as the questions following them have been very properly selected.
I have deliberately kept for the end my survey on chapter 7 dedicated to Greek Drama. It starts with a very practical concrete remarks on specific features of verse texts to be found in Tragedy. Then the author moves to metrics. He tries to summarise but I am afraid he should have taken longer to explain the metres which not easy to be understood at first sight even if only iambic trimeters are considered. Lyrics at the chorus have been very properly dropped, together with choral texts for translation. It is a quite complete first approach to Euripides and Sophocles. In fact, extracts from Helen, Hecuba, Suppliant Women, Heracles, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Trojan Women, Iphigenia at Aulis and even Bacchae are examined. Concerning Sophocles, Electra (three fragments), Oedipus at Colonus, Ajax (two fragments), Women from Trachis, Philoctetes, and Oedipus Tyrannus are included into this excellent selection.
The chapter includes a list of 300 words to be found more usually in tragic texts. Of course, it is a very useful tool in order to understand every extract.
Last but not least the author includes a complete summary of syntax followed by a quite complete survey of grammar. Concerning this survey, I would like to make a serious suggestion about 30 important irregular aorists, page 323, and then 100 common irregular verbs, pages 324 and 325. First: one single appendix would have been enough. All the verbs included in the first list are to be found in the next one where thedifferent stems of any verb are missing. Secondly, why list the verbs in alphabetic order instead of gathering them according to the specific irregularity? Any student would learn and remember them more easily if we show them in a “grammatical order” instead of an alphabetic one. So whether it is μανθάνω or έμαθαν, λαμβάνω or ἕλαβον, τυγχάνω or ἕτυχον it does not matter which letter comes before or after. This remark also applies to the vocabulary following in an appendix. Of course, it is a kind of dictionary and must be arranged in alphabetic order. I would have liked to find it either following lexical affinities or following semantic areas. Then the book would have been perfect. I have found a very useful tool the five appendixes closing the heavy volume: Words easily confused, (1) Greek and Latin constructions compared (2), Pronunciation (3), Outline of Greek history (4), and Major Greek authors (5).
This book should be on the table of any teacher in Ancient Greek. It contains lots of teaching material. It is a very well structured one and most of all as the author himself intends, is extremely useful to make the study of Greek serious, not funny, but accessible and enjoyable. I fervently recommend it.
José Luis Navarro
EUROCLASSICA (Spain)
JLNavarro Greek Beyond GCSE Taylor 02
This is not a handbook but a really thick volume of 400 pages. It is fully based on the first edition dated in 2008; four chapters remain essentially unchanged but the next three chapters are completely new. As indicated at the beginning, it sets out to be a kind of sequel to Greek to GCSE, but even so the author declares it can be used independently.
In order to write a useful review, I think it would be better to deal with chapters 5, 6, and 7 (the new ones) after presenting a general outlook of such a fine volume.
This is not a book for beginners. The students must have previous knowledge, but in case they have forgotten, they will have the chance of turning back to the foundations of Greek Language. This is an absolutely complete book: grammar, civilisation, literature, texts, vocabulary are to be found all through the volume. Even metrics are available.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are supposed to be recently incorporated to the book. They mostly offer lots of texts quite suitable for comprehension and translation; chapter 5 focuses on historical texts; chapter 6 moves to specific texts from Thucydides adding a sample of oratory extracts mostly from Lysias. Chapter 7 moves a step further and tackles tragic verse from Sophocles and Euripides. Chapter 8, to the end, summarises previous chapters including six anthologised texts from Xenophon, Lysias, Thucydides and even Demosthenes, a quite reasonable extract from Against Conon. All the texts as well as the questions following them have been very properly selected.
I have deliberately kept for the end my survey on chapter 7 dedicated to Greek Drama. It starts with a very practical concrete remarks on specific features of verse texts to be found in Tragedy. Then the author moves to metrics. He tries to summarise but I am afraid he should have taken longer to explain the metres which not easy to be understood at first sight even if only iambic trimeters are considered. Lyrics at the chorus have been very properly dropped, together with choral texts for translation. It is a quite complete first approach to Euripides and Sophocles. In fact, extracts from Helen, Hecuba, Suppliant Women, Heracles, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Trojan Women, Iphigenia at Aulis and even Bacchae are examined. Concerning Sophocles, Electra (three fragments), Oedipus at Colonus, Ajax (two fragments), Women from Trachis, Philoctetes, and Oedipus Tyrannus are included into this excellent selection.
The chapter includes a list of 300 words to be found more usually in tragic texts. Of course, it is a very useful tool in order to understand every extract.
Last but not least the author includes a complete summary of syntax followed by a quite complete survey of grammar. Concerning this survey, I would like to make a serious suggestion about 30 important irregular aorists, page 323, and then 100 common irregular verbs, pages 324 and 325. First: one single appendix would have been enough. All the verbs included in the first list are to be found in the next one where thedifferent stems of any verb are missing. Secondly, why list the verbs in alphabetic order instead of gathering them according to the specific irregularity? Any student would learn and remember them more easily if we show them in a “grammatical order” instead of an alphabetic one. So whether it is μανθάνω or έμαθαν, λαμβάνω or ἕλαβον, τυγχάνω or ἕτυχον it does not matter which letter comes before or after. This remark also applies to the vocabulary following in an appendix. Of course, it is a kind of dictionary and must be arranged in alphabetic order. I would have liked to find it either following lexical affinities or following semantic areas. Then the book would have been perfect. I have found a very useful tool the five appendixes closing the heavy volume: Words easily confused, (1) Greek and Latin constructions compared (2), Pronunciation (3), Outline of Greek history (4), and Major Greek authors (5).
This book should be on the table of any teacher in Ancient Greek. It contains lots of teaching material. It is a very well structured one and most of all as the author himself intends, is extremely useful to make the study of Greek serious, not funny, but accessible and enjoyable. I fervently recommend it.
José Luis Navarro
EUROCLASSICA (Spain)