Hi phalakros, I’d be keen to go through Sidgwick’s verse comp. with you. I started this many years ago, but there are words in there I wouldn’t use now (e.g. my 2006 version of the example discussed in this thread contains at least two issues—the comparative is a rare form which I wouldn’t use now, and although I expressed my concerns around anarthrous adjectives in substantival use, I used one then, but you can see in the thread above that I would avoid this now):
On prose comp., definitely agreed—I was making a slightly different point above: after reading the ancient critics like Demetrius, Dion. Hal., etc., I’ve realised that prose comp. books don’t really go into the different prose styles (grand, simple, forceful etc.). Even in Dickey’s relatively recent An introduction to the composition and analysis of Greek prose 2016, the appendix on prose composition as an art form simply says “Greek writers liked long sentences” (p. 253), which is stereotypical of some styles but not others, and definitely doesn’t gel with large chunks of Plato (on whom I focus).
Chad: That sounds good—let’s give it a shot. We can create a new thread. Shall we start on Ex. VII?
A few thoughts on your last paragraph. Dickey, North & Hillard, and others are elementary composition textbooks, focused on mastering morphology, core vocabulary, and basic syntax. They are not concerned with the finer points of Greek prose, and rightfully so. The imitation of different prose styles and genres comes later (if at all, anymore) and is a topic for more advanced books. (Nairn’s prose comp that I mentioned above sets passages from English lit according to the Greek author to be imitated, often Plato or an orator; see also, e.g., Sidgwick’s very useful Lectures on Gk Prose Comp, Nash-Williams, Andrew (which I have not yet used), the inimitable Donovan. All of that, of course, is secondary to one’s own close reading). Such works assume significant experience in Greek literature and composition. Personally, I find it best to combine work on longer, continuous passages with shorter exercises in idiom and syntax.
Hi guys, I might join you intermittently, popping in just now and again, if that’s ok with you.
If I remember (it was a long time ago) Sidgwick doesn’t aim at any particular dramatist’s style, does he?, distinct though they are and changing over time. And I have to admit I tire rapidly of single lines, having spent too much time on the moralistic pabulum of the so-called sententiae Menandri and the like with Jaekel and Liapis and the papyri.
Incidentally, Aesop’s rebuke of his ingrate adoptive son in the Ahiqar section of the Life of Aesop is larded with monostichs which have never properly been pulled back out.
As to prose, I think Hutchinson is very good and stimulating, as I’ve said before here or elsewhere. (Dickey must surely say more than "Greek writers liked long sentences”! and some of the versions are instructive. I wonder what Chad thinks of Martin West’s Plato, which I thought was spot on.)
Hi phalakros, I’ve decided to practice with Kynaston’s iambic exercises rather than Sidgwick’s. Kynaston starts straight away with continuous text rather than single verses; continuous text comes later in Sidgwick.
Continuous text exercises will give me a better chance of testing what Dik says about word order (2007), which I’m keen to try out.