The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

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Redhead
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The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

Hi, I'm a student of Greek at the university of Göteborg. I've read quite a few of the threads here at Textkit, but now I would like to interact more directly with y'all. My main purpose is to find updated and good secondary literature, mainly commentaries and grammatical resources, for MY GRRAND PLAAN to read through the TLG. Impossible you say? I think not. All I need is a bit less than 200 years. So... better get started, right? :D

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ἑκηβόλος
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

Good luck.

Which is the one to begin with, one's favourite or one that is deemed expendable for practicing on? Is the last one the goal or the afterthought? Perhaps it would be better to read through the corpus at least twice, so that every work both adds to the competency with which you read the others and draws from it too.
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

Redhead
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

ἑκηβόλος wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 1:31 pm Good luck.

Which is the one to begin with, one's favourite or one that is deemed expendable for practicing on? Is the last one the goal or the afterthought? Perhaps it would be better to read through the corpus at least twice, so that every work both adds to the competency with which you read the others and draws from it too.
By "the one", I assume you mean what text to start reading in the TLG, am I right? So, in other words, let's make it 400 years :wink:

Jokes aside, I'm "starting" with Homer(having read the NT 4 four times + Plato, Xenophon, Lysias, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Herodotus, Euripides, Basil the great) and work my way through. This is just my "Hello everyone, I'm the new guy"-post, maybe didn't make that clear in the above. The Iliad is nearly finished, and I've started tracing down resources for the Odyssey. I don't have that of a specific goal really. Just obsessed with reading Greek.

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jeidsath
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by jeidsath »

There are only 110 million words in the TLG. If you can work yourself up to a good reading pace, say 100 words/min, and devote your working days to it, you'll be done in 6 years.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

Redhead
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

jeidsath wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 2:42 pm There are only 110 million words in the TLG. If you can work yourself up to a good reading pace, say 100 words/min, and devote your working days to it, you'll be done in 6 years.
Considering that I am struggling to do 40 lines of Homer every hour, it will take some time before I reach that insane tempo. I'm trying to read between 200 and 250 lines a day, including working through the commentaries. Once I reach attic, though, and start to get comfy with it(I'm not sure if we have even read more than 100 000 words of attic), it will probably get better. My estimation was based around 2000 words per day, which is more realistic if one wants to/have to use secondary literature as well and look into even a limited amount of the juicy philological details one encounters.

But I'm trying to get my latin going as well(I've only had 800 hours of latin) and will be taking hebrew classes the next semester... But as we say in Sweden: Skam den som ger sig! (shame unto the one who gives up!)

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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Callisper »

Your scattered reading from a high-quality sample of the finest Attic authors may have sorely misled your expectations. The reason you would presumably be the first(?) to pull this off isn't that it's fundamentally 'difficult' to read that much - see jeidsath's estimate and you can easily get faster than 100wpm - but that vanishingly few people have the stomach to power through the vast, abstruse, repetitive patristic stuff. (At least, that's my excuse.)

There is, OTOH, a large amount of Byzantine history that is good fun reading, if one is looking to pump up his/her word-count and gain a lot of reading experience.

Redhead
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

Callisper wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 10:54 pm Your scattered reading from a high-quality sample of the finest Attic authors may have sorely misled your expectations. The reason you would presumably be the first(?) to pull this off isn't that it's fundamentally 'difficult' to read that much - see jeidsath's estimate and you can easily get faster than 100wpm - but that vanishingly few people have the stomach to power through the vast, abstruse, repetitive patristic stuff. (At least, that's my excuse.)

There is, OTOH, a large amount of Byzantine history that is good fun reading, if one is looking to pump up his/her word-count and gain a lot of reading experience.
I'll make it my life goal. I'll dedicate every ounce of breath in my elbow, every knee in my arms and all those tiny little things called "knuckles" under my feet. I've got the stomach. And all my other body parts displaced.

We'll see how it turns out. But I'm quite serious about this. I'd be very happy if you guys are right. Thanks for the encouragement!

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Cathexis
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Cathexis »

Why just read it?

Why not profit from your efforts *and* encourage future generations to pursue the same? A worthy goal!
Instead, produce a "Highlights Learning" version of the TLG as you read it. See here:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&r ... _sr_book_1

Cathexis
Romani ite Domum

Redhead
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

Cathexis wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 1:16 pm Why just read it?

Why not profit from your efforts *and* encourage future generations to pursue the same? A worthy goal!
Instead, produce a "Highlights Learning" version of the TLG as you read it. See here:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&r ... _sr_book_1

Cathexis
Sounds like a plan. Maybe I should give them a call and offer my services to produce an entire series of "TLG Highlights Learning". I mean, who could possibly be so anti educational so as to deny such brilliant Idea?? How many volumes are we opting for here? 100? 200? The kids could start collecting and stuff. I can't see how this could possibly go wrong!

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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Amplaos »

I'm wondering how you plan to order the text you read, especially after the Classical Attic period. Who do you read first, Marcus Aurelius or the Apostolic Fathers?
Ῥήθεντα ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγάλου ῥήτορος Δονάλδου Τρᾶμπ·

"Ἡμᾶς μὲν δεῖ τεῖχος οἰκοδομῆσαι, αὐτὸ δὲ ταχέως οἰκοδομηθῆναι."
"Συνίημι τοὺς λόγους. Ἔχω δὴ τοὺς ἀρίστους λόγους."
"Ὀλίγόν μοι ἐδανείσεν ὁ πατήρ, ἑκατομύριον δολάρια."
"Μοι δὲ ἀρέσκουσι οἱ μὴ ζωγρηθέντες."

Redhead
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Re: The TLG all the way through. Anyone?

Post by Redhead »

Amplaos wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 11:53 am I'm wondering how you plan to order the text you read, especially after the Classical Attic period. Who do you read first, Marcus Aurelius or the Apostolic Fathers?
Well, I haven't made up my mind yet, but that's a minor issue. I just started this year, and I'm still in the Odyssey. It will take *some* time to get that that far. But I will get there. I'm structuring my entire life to make a serious attempt at it. I'll have to adopt some sort of strategy of order, but I'll explain that as more posts come up in the series. :)

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