CUP (2016) p/b 298pp £17.99 (9780521184250)
This is a wholly admirable piece of work by an acknowledged expert in the field. There are 18 main chapters, followed by two of Summary and Consolidation, and eight Appendices. There is also a table of Principal Parts and a Vocabulary—and, by no means to be ignored, an example of a longish passage of English with a Greek version by the late Martin West.
Ultimately based on North and Hillard’s Greek Prose Composition, it has ‘a significant increase in the amount of explanation devoted to each construction’, and, crucially, it contains many passages taken from Lysias, Plato, Isocrates, and Xenophon (not Thucydides!) for the student to analyse. These are by no means easy, and the author’s intention for the work—‘to fit a one-semester course meeting twice a week’—will demand much even of the most determined students, especially since each chapter is accompanied not only by exercises—sometimes of considerable length—but by recommended study of the relevant areas of Weir Smyth’s Greek Grammar (the sensible choice), plus memorization of vocabulary.
Before the chapters themselves, the book opens, bravely, with a section on accentuation. The reviewer’s only comment here is that D.’s necessary compression might lead the student, who notes that ‘finite verb forms are nearly always recessive’, to accent such a word as προσῆλθον with a proparoxytone accent rather than a properispomenon.
In the main body of the work, perhaps the most testing construction for many students—experto crede—is that of conditional clauses in oratio obliqua, a topic which D. tackles in great detail, accompanied by many exercises. As just one example, D. lists 17 Greek sentences, using the ὅτι and the infinitive constructions, for the student to ‘translate, give the direct speech version in Greek, and name the type of condition’—and this is followed by a yet more demanding exercise. (Actually, North and Hillard’s shorter and blunter approach here, with worked examples of the main varieties, has much to be said for it.) But what D. then does is to give ten actual, and not always straightforward, passages from Plato etc. for the student to analyse, and the value of this can hardly be overstated. Your reviewer valiantly attempted this exercise, occasionally allowing a wry smile to relieve his wrinkled brow, and at one point crying ‘foul’ at the appearance of a very forward ἄν (the students cannot possibly yet be aware of Wackernagel’s Law).
Quibbles: as mentioned, the student is advised to read Smyth in conjunction with the exercises. But on the first (early) appearance of μή, it might have been helpful also to see a reference to Smyth s.1644 on negatives, and again, when that so important word ἄν comes into view, Smyth s.1164 might have been adduced with advantage. While these matters would naturally be handled by the course’s supervisor, the unsupervised student—also allowed for by D.—might need help. However, such tiny points—and there are a few more—must not be overemphasised: this work will come as an unqualified boon to any tutor who is engaged in teaching this infinitely fascinating (and flexible) subject.
Amusingly, D. puts the following words in capital letters alone on a page: IMPORTANT NOTE: ALMOST EVERY RULE PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK HAS EXCEPTIONS, MOST OF WHICH ARE NOT MENTIONED. How true! North and Hillard may now take honourable retirement, and this book is unreservedly recommended.
Colin Leach