An Introduction to the Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose

Eleanor Dickey’s book is a welcome and much needed manual of ancient Greek prose composition. I have been studying Homeric, Attic, and Biblical Greek since 2000, and while I have taken a number of classes, and have worked extensively with a Ph.D. instructor, I still find I get stuck while reading Greek, and often mistranslate even simple Greek (if there is such a thing.) In my frustration, I decided to spend this year working on improving my active command of the language, and Dr. Dickey’s book could not have come at a better time.If you’ve used North and Hilliard, upon which her book is loosely based, fear not. Dr. Dickey’s book is an entirely different beast. Her book is far more user-friendly and thorough than N&H, and also more appropriate for the autodidact.Each chapter begins with a section of Smyth for the student to review. I’ve used Smyth for years, but I haven’t systematically studied it, and so her recommended reading is a great idea. Then, she gets into the meat of the chapter. She does not simply present the “rules,” however, but also gives practice exercises to help reinforce the rules. At the end of the chapter come the actual composition exercises. Dr. Dickey has a sense of humor, so you will find sentences like this: “Men of modern times do not eat horses.” After the composition exercises, Dr. Dickey presents some actual Greek passages to be translated and analyzed systematically. Reading Greek is, of course, an essential part of learning to write Greek, and these readings are keyed to emphasize the subject of the chapter.There are a number of appendices which are useful, but there are two I want to specifically mention. One is an excellent summary of the technique for analyzing a difficult Greek sentence. I don’t care how well you think you read Xenophon, when you get into more advanced works you will eventually get lost in a long block of prose, and a good system is important to dig yourself out. Also, an appendix covers the “art” of prose composition. The bulk of the book is concerned with introductory composition exercises, but translating more modern English texts into Greek requires additional skills well covered in her essay. Also worth mentioning is the partial answer key, essential for autodidacts. It is always tough to grade your own composition exercises, especially with Greek’s fluid word order, but if you’ve read enough Greek you can usually spot your errors after looking at the key.Finally, I’d like to point out that Dr. Dickey seems to really love Greek. Her passion comes through in the text. In the first chapter on the use of the article, she cites a sentence from the Republic where an entire protasis is substantivized with the article. Literally, it reads: “The if we persuade you that it is necessary to let us go is still left.” What a typically (and maddeningly) Greek expression. Either you love that sort of thing or you shouldn’t bother with this language. If you do, then pick up this book and use Dr. Dickey’s help to develop an active command of the language.

I bought this as my first trek into the world of Greek composition, and it has been a lot more than a composition textbook to me.Each chapter presents a set of Greek paragraphs that are to be analyzed in terms of their structure before being translated into English. This has proven difficult, but fruitful. Especially since the texts come from all over the ancient Greek corpus. I've read more actual unadapted Greek in this textbook than I've ever managed to read outside of it (beyond reading the New Testament).The only thing that I've found a bit misleading is that the introduction says that forms/concepts that have not been covered will not be included in the exercises, but it starts very early with middle-passive infinitives. For example, the author asks us to translate "by being educated" [τῷ παιδεύεσθαι] and "wish to be educated" [βούλονται παιδεύεσθαι] in the first chapter though the only thing explicitly covered was the use of articles! Perhaps it should be stated that the text is aimed at students who have reached a certain level in their Greek study, since this would not have been manageable having only learned the uses of the article in that chapter.Overall, I love that the author presents vocabulary sets for each chapter, the system introduced for sentence structural analysis, and the way that translation into Greek is presented sentence-by-sentence to get you used to composing in Greek. The larger Greek-to-English translation sections at the end of the book are a great bridge to reading and analyzing real text and moving beyond the textbook.

I simply cannot say how much I loved this book. I am a 1st year PhD student in Religious Studies, and since I work continuously on Byzantine sources I need to keep my Greek at the highest level possible. I feel that this book got me one step closer to proficiency in ancient Greek. I have always found it hard to fill the gap between the level that one can reach, let's say, at the end of the second volume of Athenaze and the actual literature, but I think that with this book I made it. Although I still cannot read quickly the hardest pages of Greek literature at first sight, I feel that after completing my class in Greek composition with this book I am definitely closer to that goal. The book helps to internalize some (I'd say a significant part) of the most complex syntactical structures of Greek, giving to the reader a deeper understanding of the nuances of the various modes and tenses. Just do what she says - learn the words, work two chapters per week, do the homework attentively, and don't give up: τοῦτο δὴ τὸ μέγιστον τῶν βιβλίων, χάριν σε κελεύω Ἔλεανορ!

I believe this is only the second book to help you write Ancient Greek published in the last 100 years or so. I really like it. I tried North and Hillard and Sidgwick and just could not handle how boring it was to slog through those exercises. I think Dickey has learned much from those books and she is trying an approach which is similar enough to theirs, and different enough, to be effective with modern learners. I do think you will only benefit from this book if your passive knowledge of Greek is pretty good, but once you are at the point, I think all should give it a try. The best way to write out the exercises, I have found, is on index cards. The book should have come with several marker ribbons, but you can put those in yourself. The Ancient Greeks have written some great things for us. Now, it's time for us to return the favor. χάριν δ' οἴδαμεν τῇ Dickey!

The book was sufficient but It could use a little more detail regarding adverbial usages such as τυχόν, ἲσως, & τἀχα and other idiomatic adverbial uses.

Arrived on time and in beautiful condition. Important because this was a Christmas gift for my Greek scholar son .

Excellent. Eleanor Dickey is an amazing scholar and teacher.