Re: Reading Non-Biblical Greek

Maurice A. O'Sullivan (mauros@iol.ie)
Tue, 12 Nov 1996 13:46:09 +0000

At 05:31 12/11/96 -0600, "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
wrote:
>Along the same lines, someone who has developed reasonably solid Koine
>Greek competence who wants to develop an ability with Classical Attic could
>do worse than work through the JACT course book, _Reading Greek_ (published
>by Cambridge). I use it as a first-year textbook in Attic, and it will not
>do very well as a self-instructing text for one who's not had any previous
>Greek, but I think that one who already has Koine could learn classical
>Attic relatively painlessly and enjoyably with it: its reading selections
>are all interesting and the graduate into more and more completely original
>texts from Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Plato, Euripides, and ends
>with Homer's Odyssey 6. One who works through it completely should be able
>to manage with Platonic dialogues, Aristotle, and what not with reasonable
>facility.

This text is used for full-time students in the Classics depts of Maynooth
College (where one of the authors teaches ), Trinity College Dublin and
University College Dublin

It also is used in the U.C.D adult education classes, and last year I
finished a three year evening course ( two hours a week ) based on it.

For those thinking of using it, as Carl puts it, " as a self-instructing
text ", I would strongly advocate getting "An independent study guide to
'Reading Greek' " published by the The Joint Association of Classical
Teachers' Greek Course ( Cambridge U.P 1995 ) ISBN 0 521 47863 4

Whether using "Reading Greek" in class or solo, a very interesting adjunct
is "The World of Athens: An Introduction to classical Athenian culture"
(Cambridge U.P 1984) ISBN 0 521 26789 7 (hard cover)
27389 7 (paperback)

Apart from its own merits, it has a useful index, keyed to the sections of
"Reading Greek", so that background can be absorbed along with the textual
study.

Enjoy!

Maurice

Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros@iol.ie

[using Eudora Pro v 2.2 and Trumpet Winsock 3.0c ]