An Introduction to the Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose

This book offers a lively, intelligent, accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to translating into ancient Greek.

Eleanor Dickey (Author)

9780521184250, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 May 2016

312 pages
24.5 x 17.5 x 1.4 cm, 0.63 kg

'Dickey dedicates this book to her students, and this devotion to students can be felt on every page. The choices made, the added details, the streamlined exercises all betray her thoughtful care and genuine concern for the student's experience. Witnessing my own students work through this book proved my original impressions about it: the students not only quickly improved and mastered the material despite its challenges, but clearly enjoyed doing so. But the best news of all may be that with the book's partial answer key and clear instructions, no student needs to wait until the class is on offer at their (or some nearby) university: just go buy the book, get to work, and enjoy it.' Stephen Kidd, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Why learn to write in a dead language? Because a really good understanding of a language can only be attained by using it actively. Unlike earlier textbooks aimed at schoolboys, this work addresses modern adults who want to understand concepts fully as they learn. Drawing on recent scholarship where appropriate and assuming no prior background except some reading knowledge of Greek, the course combines a structured review of paradigms and vocabulary with clear and comprehensive explanations of the rules of Greek syntax. Large numbers of exercises are provided, both with and without key: a complete set of cumulative exercises and another set of non-cumulative exercises for those who prefer to dip into specific sections. The exercises include, as well as English sentences and paragraphs for translation, Greek sentences and passages for translation, analysis, and manipulation. A full English-Greek vocabulary and list of principal parts are included.

Preface
Bibliography
Accentuation
1. Articles
2. Modifiers
3. Tenses, voices, and agreement
4. Cases
5. Participles
6. The structure of a Greek sentence: word order and connection
Review exercises
7. Conditional, concessive, and potential clauses
8. Relative clauses
9. Pronouns
10. Indirect statement
11. Questions
Review exercises
12. Purpose, fear, and effort
13. Cause, result, and 'on condition that'
14. Comparison and negatives
15. Commands, wishes, and prevention
16. Temporal clauses
Review exercises
17. Impersonal constructions and verbal adjectives
18. Oratio obliqua
19. Summary
20. Consolidation
Appendices: A. Errors in Smyth's Grammar
B. English tenses and their Greek equivalents (indicative only)
C. Hints for analysing Greek sentences
D. English conditional clauses
E. A selection of terminologies for describing Greek conditional sentences
F. Short, easily confused words
G. Partial answer key
H. The next step: prose composition as an art form
Principal parts
Vocabulary
Index to vocabulary.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]