Hello everyone! I am new to here. I am wondering if there are good vocab list for greek poetry. I find a lot of resources for prose, especially Malcolm Campbell’s Classical Greek Prose A Basic Vocabulary. I feel that I need something similar but for poetry,
Many people told me to make a running list, but I feel that I need to memorize some vocab first. Every time I try to read poetry, I will be frustrated by the difficult vocabs, so a few lines later I quit. Anyone could also advice on psychology? Many thanks!
The way I approach this myself is I save lists of vocabulary I’ve made to prepare for the works I’ve already read. When I move on to a new work, or to a new part of a work, I create a list of all the vocabulary it contains (you can use the Perseus vocabulary tool for Greek or Latin (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/vocablist) to generate a tailor-made list for a given (part of a) work and then import the list in e.g. Excel or a flashcard app). Perseus gives you a number of frequency and weighting options – it’s worth taking the time to figure out how the settings work (see https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/help/vocab).
I use lexical software (Wordsmith Tools (https://lexically.net/wordsmith/) but there may be free apps out there that do this, too) to compare this new list to my previous lists in order to weed out any vocabulary I’ve already made flashcards for (I use Anki – https://apps.ankiweb.net). Alternatively, you might be able to use conditional formatting in Excel to do something similar.
Then I drill the remaining terms before I start to read.
It might sound involved at first, but once you get comfortable with your workflow, it ends up being a real timesaver.
The only book I know is Greek Vocabulary and Idiom by Bullock and Harrison 1960 Macmillan. This has two sections drama and prose. The drama section has 850 words of “very common occurrence especially in Euripides and Sophocles.”
(In case someone comes across this link at a later date, the page number may change as I update the file. I’m talking about a section at the end of the book.)