How can i learn ancient greek

This is typical of not just The Clouds , but all of Athenian Old Comedy, which is technically the genre this fits into. You can celebrate phenomenal versions of poetic form and learning and art but at the same time tell arse jokes. The classics are not these sanitised works of literature with a capital L.

Learning Greek will also give you access to some fantastic scatological and willy jokes. It seems disconnected. Ah, Herodotus, The Histories. This might be familiar to some and unfamiliar to others. It holds a special place in my heart. This is one of the first works of great ancient Greek history that I had contact with and it was the work of historiography that inspired me to pursue all this…. Ancient Greek history, politics, religion, literature, how they fit together, how they blend, how they come into conflict and why.

Herodotus basically sets out to write an account of why all of the various Greek poleis, the Greek city-states, came to have war waged on them by the Persian Empire. Is history devoid of morality or is history tragic?

Is time cyclical? Is there any way for humans to truly understand why things happen or can we only come to grips with the how? All of this is embedded in The Histories.

So you tell your great Herodotus story. For whatever reason, it has been deposited in the sands, just below the surface. Which is a central idea or conceit of Herodotus, that the further away you get from Greece, which is very moderate and balanced, the more you get fascinating things, stranger things, better things, more lucrative things but also much worse, much more sinister things.

So he says that what you need to do is this. You need to wait till the hottest part of the day. You tether them together and you ride the female camel in the middle, with your big packs on the side to carry the gold dust back. And you hurry out there and as quickly as you possibly can, you scoop as much of this gold dust and sand and everything else into these bags. And then the ants inevitably come out of the ground and start to attack you. Which is completely bizarre but it really sustains you in what is a very long but fascinating and rich work.

It crosses boundaries of genre and concepts in philosophy and historiography while, at the same time, being extremely accessible in its original language. It seems to me that your main motivation for learning ancient Greek is so obviously to do with reading the original texts. I agree actually, I think that you do get more out of both Latin and Greek text when you read it in the original. Not least because it gets you reading these texts.

Why is it not on your list? Is it because you think other dictionaries are adequate alternatives or is it just because you wanted to get in Herodotus, Aristophanes and Plato? For me, it was important to get those three in, absolutely. But If I had six, Liddell and Scott would be the sixth. Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date.

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He holds a PhD in Classics from Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his doctoral thesis, Offending the Gods in Attic Forensic Discourse Before and After Socrates , examines the Athenian lawcourt as a forum where citizens debated and revised their theological ideas in the fifth-century B. We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations.

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Find your personal contacts including your tutor and student support team:. Help with accessing the online library, referencing and using libraries near you:. Skip to content. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Classical Studies. You are here Home Learning Ancient Greek. New to Ancient Greek? Study time: hours Preparing to Study Ancient Greek If you want to gain an idea of what learning Ancient Greek will involve, or are planning to study the language formally at school, university or more independently, then the OU booklet, Getting Started on Ancient Greek , will help you on your way.