Upps… I forgot to mention that the article which would interest you the most is the On Greek Primers. I don’t agree ENTIRELY with his reasoning, but I do believe that Zuntz speaks some truth (although I most admit that his biases, that is those of the typical well off German intellectual of the early XX Century, are pretty obvious). To Zuntz’s merit I believe that he remained coherent with his choices and pedagogical standards, which are reflected in his Lehrgang.
Page 364 (reviewing the > Thrasymachus> ):
[…] the Greek of those lively and humorous narratives - is not Greek at all; it is basic English written with Greek letters. Take for example the very first stage direction: ὀ Θρασύμαχος παιδίον ἐστὶ καὶ καθεύδει. ἀστραπὴ καὶ βροντή and soon: ἀλλὰ ἀντρώπου φωνὴν οὐκ ἀκούεις (i.e. ‘but it is not a human voice you are hearing’). There is much of the kind. The authors may hold that it serves to make the learners feel at home in Greek surroundings and that, moreover, it is balanced by the citation of a fair amount of unaltered Greek (particularly passages from the Odyssey). I for one fear that it may prejudice the appreciation of properly Greek style and of the great works of literature. This leads to my third point; namely, the ruthless reduction of this literature -much of the greatest is reflected in this book- to the mental level of Billy Bunter and his sense of humour. This may amuse and stimulate the fourteen-year-old, but may incidentally prevent him for good from attuning himself to what is-beyond Billy Bunter. Judgement here may be bound up with one’s sense of humour, so-called. I confess to being shocked throughout this lively and efficient book by an all- pervading lack of any sense of respect. A touchstone, to my mind, is the ‘further contribution to the enjoyment of elementary Greek’ consisting in ‘four songs (Ὑμνοι!) by the late Dr W. H. D. Rouse’. ‘Pop goes the weasel’ in would-be Greek and would-be verses: I find it odious and, at any rate, not conducive to the appreciation of, say, Pindar.
In the note 5 of the same page: I have no time for productions which drag their subject down to the level of television commercials […]
Page 367 and 368 (After enumerating the positive aspects of several German “primers”):In view of the devotion, effort and competence evidenced by these publications (and, nota bene, the idealism of their publishers, who cannot have expected to spin gold by producing them) one is reluctant to voice any adverse criticism. I have, however, to admit a weakness of all of them, and that at a central point; namely, in the quality of the Greek contained in them. It is true that they all quote notable amounts of original Greek. The greater proportion, however, is ‘home-grown’, and its quality is, rather often, none too good. It would be invidious here to print an anthology of failures; but I have come across some Greek sentences, the meaning of which eluded me; many more whose style was Germanic rather than Greek, and others in which Homeric and other poetic elements were merged into prose. Not rarely the quality of original passages had been debased either by ‘alleviation’ or by an endeavour to squeeze samples of a particular grammatical topic into them. Sets of model sentences tend to turn out meaningless or, en masse, dizzifying; and free compositions (in which > Basis > seemed to me more successful than the rest), even when free from actual mistakes, appeared pale when compared, mentally, with authentic treatments of the same subject (say, a speech in the ecclesia or the description of a battle). On the whole, one senses too much of the modern classroom and too little of ancient Greece.
I have written down these criticisms with much reluctance. They tend, however, to confirm a tenet which I have urged before; namely, that nobody today is able to write what could pass for original Greek, or for its equivalent. And why should we trouble to do it? Enough original Greek has been left by the original Greeks-and this is what we want to study.
Page 371 and 372:Having scanned the world from Munich to Montreal we are now in a position to state what the course ought to be like which could satisfy present-day requirements.
It ought to be interesting in itself (especially also to older learners) and an efficient way to mastery of ancient Greek in its various literary forms. It ought not, under the heading ‘Exercise’, to contain meaningless assemblages of words, but to present exclusively original, and meaningful, Greek passages sufficient for every form and every rule to be deduced -or, if this be preferred, to be illustrated- from it. It ought to offer every didactic device, ancient and modern, to enable the learner to progress efficiently and quickly, but to leave teacher and learner free to seek their own ways. […]
He that decides to present only original Greek has to accept certain drawbacks (in addition to the endless trouble in seeking suitable quotations). There are no coherent and interesting texts in Greek literature consisting entirely of the singular of the present indicative of regular verbs in -ω and of nouns in -ος; and even when you have advanced, say, to the verbs with stems ending in a labial, no one piece of Greek literature will provide all the required forms of these verbs. In consequence, either one will have to offer coherent texts which unavoidably, while containing a considerable percentage of words and forms which are as yet beyond the horizon of the learner, will nevertheless not contain instances of all the words and forms under discussion -or one renounces the ideal of ‘continuous reading’ and produces a mosaic which fully exemplifies the linguistic facts which one aims to teach; in which case one would strive and see to it that each part of the mosaic has some interest in itself and is grouped together with some others related in substance and wording. And, of course, as soon as possible one will offer coherent pieces -an anecdote; the description of a historical incident; a self-contained bit of poetry or a simple philosophical argument.
In the interest of solid and substantial teaching I have chosen the latter alternative. An anthology of easy coherent texts at the end of the book provides opportunities for occasional cursory readings, but essentially the work must centre on the larger, first part, which, chapter by chapter, exemplifies the traditional grammatical topics-declensions, conjugations, etc., together with elementary syntax. Since the learner is all the time reading extracts from original literature, from Homer down to the New Testament and Epictetus but mainly Attic, there will be no problem when in the end he faces continuous original texts; […]
Like I said, a severe and proud and radical opinion is that of Prof. Zuntz, but one could expect nothing less from a man who lived such a life. Even if I disagree with his radicalism in condemning “home-grown” Greek, I do think he has a point (or at least points to the Elephant in the room) and I respect him for staying true to his convictions and producing such an amazing quantity of high quality scholarship, among which, sadly, his less known is precisely his Griechischer Lehrgang.
And in response to:
I agree, and I have not had success in locating, for starters, Zuntz’s recordings for his Lehrgang, mentioned in page 373-74 of the On Greek Primers.
