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Loading... The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliadby Francesca Schironi
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The very name of Aristarchus is enough to strike fear into the hearts of modern scholars. One knows that he did things of great importance in the history of Homeric scholarship, but exactly what did he do, and how do we know, since his work is lost? Answers have certainly been given to these questions, but those answers are so difficult to understand, are based on such an intimidating body of evidence, and are debated with such fire and vigour that most of us have little confidence even in our ability to grasp what has been argued, let alone to evaluate the different arguments and their evidence base to decide which is right. Schironi’s work will change that situation completely, for in this book she lays out with total clarity what she believes Aristarchus’ scholarly methods were, what the evidence for and against her views is, and how other scholars have interpreted the same evidence. This clarity constitutes an act of unusual courage and will revolutionise the study not only of Aristarchus but also of Alexandrian scholarship more generally: since there is now an authority that everyone can actually understand well enough to follow, from now on anyone who wants to propose alternative explanations will have to present them with equal clarity or face being ignored.
A founding father of the "art of philology," Aristarchus of Samothrace (216-144 BCE) developed a sound, almost scientific method of literary exegesis, making a profound contribution to ancient scholarship. In his work on the text of Homer's Iliad, his methods and principles inevitably informed, even reshaped, his edition of the epic. The Best of the Grammarians, a systematic study of the most famous grammarian in Alexandria, places Aristarchus and his Iliadic scholia, or marginal annotations, within the context and cultural environment of his own time. Francesca Schironi presents a more robust picture of Aristarchus as a scholar than anyone has offered previously. Based on her analysis of over 4,300 fragments of his scholia, she reconstructs Aristarchus' methodology and its relationship to earlier scholarship, and especially to Aristotle, as well as the cultural milieu in which he was immersed. In doing so, Schironi departs from the standard commentary on individual fragments, and instead offers a broad yet rigorously scholarly examination of how Aristarchus worked. Combining the accuracy and detail of old-school philological works on individual fragments with a big-picture study enabling the identification of recurrent patterns and methodological trends across Aristarchus' work, this volume represents a new approach to scholarship in Alexandrian and classical philology. It will be the go-to reference book on this topic for many years to come, and will usher in a new way of addressing the highly technical work of ancient scholars without losing philological accuracy, shifting the focus from details of individual fragments to the broader picture of how ancient scholars approached literary texts, what drove their methodology, and what contribution their work provided to those who came after them.
This book will be valuable to classicists and philologists interested in scholarship on Aristarchus, Homer and Homeric criticism in antiquity, the history of Greek culture, Hellenistic scholarship, and ancient literary criticism. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)880.9Literature Greek and other Classical languages Greek literature History and criticism of Greek literatureLC ClassificationRatingAverage: No ratings.Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
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