Following Athenaze II, what are some recommended textbooks for 2nd year ancient Greek?
I wonder why you have specifically asked for a textbook? Taking your question at face value I would recommend working on Greek prose composition by North and Hillard. There is also Eleanor Dickey’s more modern and perhaps advanced “Introduction to the composition and Analysis of Greek prose.”
When I read Athenaze two at university we also read Lysias I and a fair bit of Hecuba and some other Euripides, Ion I think. Athenaze is a good preparation for reading texts. Combining reading texts with work on Greek composition, which acts as revision and reinforcement of Grammar, would help to consolidate what you have learned.
I am not sure endlessly going through textbooks is especially helpful. If you are determined to work through another, Mastronarde’s Attic Greek is very good.
Hi Paul,
At my school, from the 2nd year onwards, all courses in Greek were focused on literature. Seneca, you would have loved it: 3rd and 4th year students did nothing but tragedy-Sophocles and Euripides! My first year, I noticed that the 4th year undergrads were reading Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. The course offerings varied from year to year, but there seemed to always be a concentration of course offerings in drama.
Paul, just as Seneca and many other members of this forum would advise, I urge you to jump in and start reading! If you would like to try different genres of Greek literature to see what interests you most, you could try a little book that Hylander recommended to one of the other forum members: A Little Greek Reader by James Morwood and Stephen Anderson. It surveys the major elements of Greek Syntax and provides illustrative selections from many different sources, ranging from Homer to the New Testament. I’m using it myself as a supplement to my composition work in Eleanor Dickey’s book on composition and analysis. Obviously, some authors can be more difficult to read than others and you’ll find numerous threads here discussing their relative difficulty.
Enjoy your journey!
Thanks for the advice to just start reading some of the authors you were introduced to early on. And for the book recommendations. I’m about to start the next phase of my learning journey. Thanks much again!
A Little Greek Reader is great. I think I might recommend Marchant’s Reader first to myself, if I had it to do over (or better, the larger German version it was based on if you know German). Lots of straightforward reading practice in Marchant’s rather than jumping around quite so much. I don’t know about Aetos, but I found the topical grammar-arrangement in Morwood to be wishful thinking as far as practice went, due to the low volume. And you don’t spend long enough with authors to get used to them. Great selection of fun little passages though.
I think Geoffrey Steadman’s commentaries are a good choice for one who has finished a first-year grammar book.
I’m reading Geoffrey Steadman’s student commentary for Plato’s Apology of Socrates. There’s lots of detailed grammatical notes. I’m constantly reminded by Steadman of topics I studied in Mastronarde that have faded in memory. Steadman’s notes are terse, but he gives enough grammar terms to enable further study.
Now I want to give a specific example. Toward the end are two pages headed “Uses of the Subjunctive in Plato’s Apology”. Steadman begins, “There are 63 subjunctive constructions identified in the commentary.” After summarizing the matter for two pages, he provides page numbers on which these subjunctive constructions occur.
The tinyurl is a link to the Amazon listing for this book.
You can get more information here: https://geoffreysteadman.com/
Geoffrey Steadman describes his background and educational values here: https://geoffreysteadman.com/bio/
A Fedex store in Tampa, Florida, where I live, put a spiral binding on my copy for about seven dollars US. The book comes perfect-bound (glued).
Hugh – Great idea, getting a perfect-bound book spiral-bound. When I really want to study a text I want it to lay flat. Given that perfect-bound books fall apart so easily, the investment in spiral-binding will extend the useful life of the book.
Paul – I certainly agree with the recommendations to just start reading, but if you do want a text, I recommend Cynthia Claxton’s Attica: Intermediate Classical Greek. It’s focused on readings and close analysis of each sentence along with review of grammar and exercises. It’s a great way of catching your blind spots.
Mark
I thank all of you very kindly for these recommendations! (My wallet is a little lighter today.) I’m excited to get started on these new additions to my library.
Paul,
To add to the other recommendations, if you’re interested in Plato, you could also consider Learning Greek with Plato by Frank Beetham. It’s supposed to take you from zero Greek to reading the Meno, but I think it would also work as a review and an introduction to continuously reading a longer text. He also has similar books for Homer and the New Testament.