Is there anyone interested in an intensive reading group? I have yet to read Attic prose of any length, and the recent find of the green-n-yellow of Plato’s (we’ll assume it’s his) Alcibiades at a used bookstore has me feeling inspiried.
I’m not so fond of Plato’s thought that I want to linger over every line, and I’d like to cover at least two pages of the g-n-y a week when it’s Socrates hogging the conversation, and 3-4 pages a week on rapid dialog. This’d be 3-4 months, tops, for 50 pages of Greek.
For me this pace will be a lot of work (unfamiliar vocabulary, genre and dialect), but I want to present this challenge to myself. Anyone feel up to bounding through this famous dialog with me?
I fully understand your inclination for Alcibiades having just shelled out for it but given your interests can I suggest that Ion would be a better bet for you - good solid Platonic Attic and it’s about poetry. I have it in a Green & Yellow called ‘Plato: On Poetry’ which also includes a couple of chunks from Republic where he professes on things versicular.
I’ll have a toot around and see if I can lay my hands on a Green & Yellow Alciabiades, if I do I may join you.
Anyway, just a thought.
I have not read Ion except in bits (in English), but I’m somewhat familiar with the arguments it makes. Reading it would only make me angry.
I’m interested to read Alc. not just because I now have the G&Y, but because of its long role as an intro to Plato, and to philosophy in general. I wouldn’t pick up a commentary on the Republic no matter the cost.
I just got back from a short vacation visiting my girlfriend’s family in the south and I’d love to join in. The reason you stated (the Alcibiades serving as the ancient intro. to Platonic philosophy) is precisely why I’d like to pick up the dialogue myself. Plus a copy of the green-n-yellow just turned up at a local used bookstore! Let me know where you are, Will, and I will play catch-up.
I’m about 1/4 through the second page of Gk. text of the green-n-yellow, with the intent to reach the end of Stephanus 105 (p.35) by Sunday, with two Stephanus pages each week after that. I can jiggle this schedule for you to catch up.
I’m not sure we need the full group apparatus for just the two of us. I know Paul is keen to get some Plato into GTSS, but I also don’t want to impose on his time.
Ahhhh…if ony I had more time Will! Please don’t take our silence as an insult! It’s just that you set the bar a bit high for a lot of us
BTW…how do you find all the time to do all of this. Are you married? Happily?? Between a full time job, marriage, grandkids, and an active ministry, I’m lucky to get 20 minutes a night to study.
Right now the focus is on Latin for me. I am still reading Greek (although mainly at church…I need to pick up some good heathen literature again), but I really would like to get at least a working understanding of Latin before I start on any big Greek readings. This school year I will be reading a ton of Hebrew. I am taking two classes on Tanak books, one is on the Nebiim, and the other is on a large chunk of the Ketubim. My Hebrew prof (who was also my 4th year Greek prof) is teaching the course on the Nebiim, it is one of his specialties. Most of the students (probably all) will be using their English translations, I am hoping to rely much more on the actual text. Last year I bought an English/Hebrew (on facing pages) Tanak just for these classes. It should be fun!
I’m setting the bar a bit high for me, too. It should bring some focus to my studies.
BTW…how do you find all the time to do all of this. Are you married? Happily?? > > Between a full time job, marriage, grandkids, and an active ministry, I’m lucky to get 20 minutes a night to study.
Well, as I mentioned briefly in chad’s “how long have you been studying” thread, I’m single and without television. I go through cycles where I still manage to be quite busy, but I’m free of a few time-consuming obligations for the next few months, so I’m trying to make the best of it.
Right now the focus is on Latin for me.
A wee bit of my time is spent with Latin right now, too. But intensive work with that will have to wait for Socrates to stop babbling.
It sounds like an interesting project, I would like to join, but I have my hands full reading Homer now. I work long hours so don’t have much time to spare.
I still have my OCT Plato vol 3 from undergrad days, but Alcibiades is in vol 2.
Actually, one book I would like to read intensively, someday, is Xenophon’s Anabasis. I read Plato in college and enjoyed it, but I would rather read something less philosophical. Also I know that there is a nice edition of Xenophon with a good vocabulary. The cambridge books don’t have vocabularies, do they?
But why should you be angry? Plato made many howlers in argument, and his Socrates character pulls a number of fast ones - one thousand and four hundred years ago. You might as well be angry with LaoTze, or Jesus, or Akhenatem, or the Buddha. On the other hand, if you still see ‘Socrates’ standing before you as one who enrages you, despite the passage of an aeon, then that is a compliment to Plato and his guru.
And in fact, there was nothing they liked more, than to anger people.
Actually, Will, I meant to go on to say, that so immersed - and wonderfully so - are you in your hellenism, that your objections to Sokrates and Plato as if they were modern people, are a terrific compliment to you, too.
socrates/plato really annoys me, compared to aristotle. he blathers for 30 pages to make about 3 points, like medieval lawyers who used to get paid by the word. aristotle gets to the point in a few words.
after finishing the euthyphro i sympathised with euthyphro: once socrates takes a breath, run away
If you were to join us we’d form an email mailing list for the group. Larger discussion would take place there, but the bulk of our translation and grammar would would go on via Paul’s mucho fabuloso GTSS system, which would allow us to compare our own work to that of others easily via a web application.
There’s a schedule. We translate. We hash out Plato’s syntax and thought on the mailing list.
Again, and please forgive, but by ‘green n’ yellow’, are you referring to the Loeb?
No, the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. Texts in the original language, with both grammatical and literary commentary.
Perhaps. In general my sympathies and thought are much more with the Hellenistic schools. I hesitate to project intent to Plato, but I suspect he expected readers engaged enough to disagree.
Aristotle’s works, I thought, were notes taken by a student of his. Supposedly he had written dialogues as well.
Of course we have nothing to learn from Socrates. And Plato wasn’t influenced by Greek dramatists at all. Let’s just take out all the characters and boil life down to disembodied arguments. We should do the same with Shakespeare.
Cutting out the sarcasm, the “point” is not to be worshipped.
Between a full time job, marriage, grandkids, and an active ministry, I’m lucky to get 20 minutes a night to study.
I work long hours so don’t have much time to spare.