I’m just about to finish reading Plato’s Charmides, and I’m having a bit of trouble deciding what Greek text to read next. Some context: after the obligatory Xenophon excerpts, I’ve spent the last few months reading nothing but Plato (Apology, Republic I, Crito, Phaedo, Euthyphro, and now Charmides). I’ve gotten to the point where most of Plato is more-or-less-comprehensible input for me: I know or can easily guess about 80% of the vocabulary, and the only grammatical help I need is an occasional glance at a non-literal translation to get the meaning of passage.
Now I love Plato as much as anyone, but at this point I’m eager to branch out into something new, and I’d love to hear any and all recommendations for either texts or specific editions! Some thoughts:
Aristotle: I suspect there would be a lot of stylistic overlap with Plato, so he might be a safe choice. Where would you recommend a Platonist start with Aristotle?
An Attic play: I made a brief attempt at Oedipus Tyrannus a while ago, but was beaten back by the wall of impenetrable new vocabulary. Does anybody have recommendation for how to ease into the world of Attic drama without having to perpetually consult a dictionary? Is what’s necessary just old-fashioned memorization of vocabulary lists?
Homer: I’ve wanted to read Homer since I was young, but have been nervous about diving into a huge reading project with unfamiliar vocabulary. Are there any resources you’d recommend for the transition?
What are your thoughts, good people of Textkit? Thank you all!
Of those three options I think Homer would be the easiest and most pleasurable. I’d recommend Benner’s Selections from Homer’s Iliad as a well-chosen abridged version with ample help for those coming from Attic.
There’s a learning Greek through Plato by Frank Beetham which you might like. This is a direct quotation from a Bryn Mawr review
This book is intended for those who wish to learn Classical Greek, especially with a view to reading Greek philosophy. It is in fact based on Plato’s Meno 70a1-081e6 and leads the student toward being able to read (or more precisely, to translate into English) this passage. The book assumes no previous knowledge of Greek and “was developed over a number of years in the Department of Philosophy at Warwick University as a one-year course for postgraduates” (p. ix). It aims to enable a student to acquire the rudiments of Classical Greek grammar, to become accustomed to Plato’s style, to begin to read philosophy in Greek, to be able to relate a translation to the underlying Greek text with discrimination, and to follow a commentary on the text with understanding. In an effort to make the book welcoming and interesting to non-specialists, a basic introduction and background to the Meno is provided. The book provides translation exercises throughout and an answer key at the back so that students can check their own progress and even perhaps work though the book without a teacher. Also provided at the end are a Greek-English word list and the principal tenses of “some of the more difficult verbs” (p.488). On the whole the book is a welcome and important contribution to the teaching and learning of Classical Greek.
Doesn’t look like you have read the Meno yet. Might be suitable
Aristotle: You won’t find a lot of stylistic overlap with Plato. Aristotle’s dialogues are mostly lost, and the Aristotelean corpus is stylistically quite different from Platonic prose. There are many themes that are similar (and thousands of years of debate on whether Aristotle’s ideas align with Plato’s) but that’s a different question.
Homer: I’d recommend starting with Pulleyn’s edition of Iliad 1 (with vocabulary and grammar notes on the same page as the text). Beforehand, you don’t need to master the grammars of Monro and Chantraine (that could come later): there are shorter, more focused summaries of Homeric grammar (only looking at discrepancies from Attic grammar) in e.g. Thompson’s book (https://archive.org/details/homericgrammar00thomgoog) or in Monro’s edition of Iliad books 1 to 12 (there are about 80 pages of “Homeric peculiarities” at the beginning). Perhaps read through one of those quickly, and then try Pulleyn.
You’d probably find an easier transition into the orators (Lysias is a good starting point): Plato and the 10 orators are often taken as models of pure Attic style, even if they write very differently (see e.g. Denniston’s book Greek prose style on the marked differences between a Platonic and Demosthenean period).
Tragedy can be quite difficult in parts (especially the chorus sections). Maybe try one of the Cambridge green and gold commentaries on a Euripides or Sophocles play and see how you go (perhaps save Aeschylus for later). Aristophanes can also surprisingly be a little more difficult than one would expect at the beginning, because it is full of day to day vocabulary and idioms, as well as (what scholars think must be) jokes which can be obscure.
Personally, I would definitely recommend you to take the leap and read Homer. It’s true that the vocabulary might be unfamiliar, but the syntax is easy, much easier than Attic, although a bit different. The stories are as good as they get, it’s no wonder they’ve been read for two and half millennia, and what’s more, Homer is present in some way or the other in almost all other classical Greek texts, so knowing him will make reading them more rewarding.
I think you’ve already been given good tips. The list linked by Piekarski is very comprehensive (perhaps too comprehensive!), everything you need is there (and much more)! Pulleyn is good, a bit more advanced. There’s an introduction to Homeric by Clyde Pharr, which is a bit old-fashioned in some ways; it’s really an introduction for total beginners, which is not what you are, but if you want something easy, I might have a look, it’s in public domain.
Hi, You’ve been given good advice here, and what you choose to read next is really up to you.
Homer is a long way from Plato (or Plato is a long way from Homer), and it’s in verse, a hybrid kind of dactylic verse peculiar to epic poetry. You will have to look things up, but then you’ll always have to look things up. You can never expect everything to be intuitive. (Yes use Cunliffe for vocab.) I myself think Pharr is abominable, but i know Paul used him with success.
Lysias or some other of the Attic orators, as Chad said, is also an excellent suggestion, and will put to use much of what you’ve acquired by reading Plato. Unlike with Homer, the language is the standard Attic familiar from Plato. You might like to contrast Demosthenes and Isocrates.
If you want to try Athenian drama, try Euripides rather than Aeschylus or Sophocles (Soph.’s Greek is far more difficult than it looks) or Aristophanes (difficult because topical and linguistically challenging); or you could try Menander (“New Comedy,” heavily used by Plautus in the Roman Republic). For jokes and insults and earthiness and stylistic versatility, Aristophanes is your man, but hardly a laugh a minute.. All ancient Greek drama is in verse, significantly different from prose.
Herodotus is not that different from Attic, and is very good to read.
Or you could try something else altogether, e.g. Lucian (2nd cent.CE, always popular), or Longus’ delectable pastoral tale of Daphnis and Chloe.
Thank you all for the detailed and helpful responses! I’ve decided to jump into the world of Homeric Greek, probably with Pulleyn (I took a look at the opening lines of the Iliad and they were much more manageable than I expected).