I haven’t read very much Greek drama. With whom should I begin and using what commentaries?
Here’s a good place to start – Mastronarde’s edition of Euripides’ Medea.
A classic play, a good text, and a very thorough and up-to-date commentary with a lot of help on the Greek. I worked through this edition myself recently as part of my own efforts to reconnect with Greek drama, and I recommend it highly. You’ll find enough general and specific background in it for dipping your toes in the water.
I don’t recommend Denys Page’s antiquated 1938 edition. Denys Page was a great scholar with a keen intellect and very strong views forcefully expressed. He knew Greek inside and out, but sometimes I suspect he didn’t know it quite as well as he thought he did. And his ideas about what Medea is about really need an up-to-date counterweight.
You may also want to equip yourself with David Kovacs’ Loeb volume – it’s ok to use a translation to help with the Greek, as I did (and Kovacs will not always agree with Mastronarde’s interpretation). You could also just use the Loeb and look at the facing page whenever you don’t understand something. Loebs are designed for people who know some Greek but for one reason or another don’t want to or are unable to struggle with the Greek text, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach. However, you’ll learn more Greek if you work at trying to understand the text before you resort to the translation.
I was going to make a recommendation very similar to Hylander’s. As it happens, I’m currently reading Medea along with Mastronarde’s commentary (and Page’s) with a small group of friends.
However, I was going to suggest that you start by reading one tragedy—only one—without using a commentary (and without looking at the app.crit.), just to get a preliminary sense of what Greek tragedy is like. Any by Sophocles or Euripides would do for the purpose (it could be the Medea), but you must read it all the way through to the end. For structural orientation you could look at the chapter in Aristotle’s Poetics that outlines a tragedy’s parts.
My only hesitation about suggesting this is that it will only encourage sloppy and inaccurate reading. Fast reading needs to be balanced with slow very careful and attentive reading. That’s where the commentary will help, and you should try to curb idiosyncratic ideas of your own.
And do mind you don’t look at the translation before you have done absolutely all you can with the Greek yourself. By all means use it then. Kovacs’ is very good indeed, and his Greek text is independent and as good as DM’s.
At some point you’ll want to read Eurip’s Bacchae with Dodds and his Hippolytus with Barrett. (Aesch’s Oresteia trilogy too.) But I’d keep these in reserve till later. They’re just too good to read prematurely.
I’m tempted to join you. I think Euripides’ Greek is slightly easier than Sophocles’, so Medea might be a good idea from that perspective as well.
Another possibility is comedy. Aristophanes is a lot of fun, and the language is perhaps even slightly easier. I’ve been reading the Clouds for the 27th time or so, but got somehow distracted again before reaching the middle. The Frogs is great too, you get to meet Aeschylus and Euripides in Hades!
I shouldn’t have been so negative about Page. He made enormous contributions to classical scholarship. His Medea commentary is still useful in many ways and has a lot of valuable information about Greek and textual issues. I used it along with Mastronarde when I read through Medea recently, and it was my first introduction to the play in school long ago. I think it’s fair to say that it shows its age, however.
I have read some of Aristophanes’ Frogs with Dover’s commentary, which is excellent (as far as I can judge):
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/frogs-9780198150053?q=kenneth%20dover%20frogs&lang=en&cc=us
Be aware that there is also a student edition, which contains somewhat less material.
Are we flying under different names on TK and BG forums or did this question get asked in almost identical form two different places?
http://ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4121&sid=ae997d3ceaea512adad44036e24ec36b
Anyway, have nothing to say that hasn’t been said. The whole question of reliability in regard to commentaries is IMNO somewhat irrelevant. I would rather use a commentary that helps even if there are occasional errors. The world class scholars are often targeting peers as their intended audience which makes them pretty close to useless for students learning on their own. Page and Denniston on Agamemnon, comes to mind. Goeffery Steadmen isn’t targeting peers as an audience. His commentaries are useful.
Errors in Steadman? He admits it. No peer review’s before publication. Does it matter? If your writing a PhD dissertation it matters. For the rest of us “nothing is at stake” – Henry Kissinger.
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