CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY

This is an optional class in the philological-literary curriculum of the Degree in Classics. Through the study and application of the basic and more advanced principles of textual criticism, with special focus on the history of manuscript transmission of Greek and Latin texts, it aims to provide a more exact and wide-ranging panorama of the transmission of Greek and Latin texts throughout the centuries, with a special focus on issues of direct and indirect tradition, quotations etc.), as well as to introduce the students to first-hand work on manuscript witnesses.

Knowledge and comprehension
- know the main critical editions of Greek classical texts
- know the main medieval manuscripts of the history of the transmission of Greek texts
- know the advantages and problems of the contribution of papyri to the history of Greek texts
- know the main issues related to the critical edition of Classical texts
- know in detail the main steps of the modern philological method.
Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension
- be able to assess the quality and the main features of a critical edition
- be able to recognise and appreciate the most important medieval manuscript witnesses of the history of Greek tradition
- be able to assess the value and meaning of variants on papyri in the critical editions of Greek texts
- be able to produce a diplomatic transcription / critical edition of a short Greek text
- be able to attribute and date some epistemological advances of the modern philological method.
Judgment skills
- be able to criticise the ecdotic choices of an editor of Greek texts
- be able to judge with certainty the variants of a Greek poetical or prose text
Communication skills
- be able to produce and discuss a critical edition
Learning skills
- be able to interact with colleagues in order to reconstruct the better text, and match opinions on issues of textual criticism

A good knowledge of Greek and Latin is assumed, and basic notions of Greek literature and metre are recommended. Attendance of classes of Greek and Latin paleography may enhance philological skills.

The class will be devoted to the presentation of some instances of textual transmission of Greek classical texts, with special reference to their transmission in the Medieval age: the issue of translitteration, the idea of archetypus, the preservation and study of Classical texts throughout the various ages of Byzantine culture, the form and purport of scholia and of other exegetical works, the transition to the humanistic age, and the fate of texts. The authors dealt with in the class (passages from all of these will be read and discussed, and will also be the object of the oral exam) are: Homer, Hesiod, Apollonius Rhodius, Sappho, Hipponax, Simonides, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander, Herodotus, Thucydides, Lysias, Isocrates, Demosthenes.
Through a simple work of transcription / edition of a short Greek text the difficulties and main features of a first-hand work on manuscript witnesses will be illustrated.

Mandatory reading:

1) G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo, Firenze, Le Monnier 1951 (2nd ed.).

2) S. Timpanaro, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, Torino, UTET 2004 (4th ed.; the 3rd is also fine).

The texts discussed (a series of passages drawn from a number of different critical editions, on the whole about 100 pages) will be provided by the teacher during the first classes, and they will be the object of the oral examination.

For the very nature of this class, students are warmly recommended to attend. Students not attending the class, on top of the two books and the aforementioned reader, will prepare the philological reading of one book of the Iliad at their choice (in the critical edition by M.L. West, Teubner 1998) and of one of Demosthenes' speeches at their choice (in the critical edition by M.R. Dilts, Oxford 2002-2009).

The assessment will depend partly (25%) on the individual work of transcription and edition of the text presented during the last lessons of the class, and partly (75%) in an oral conversation in which the candidate will show: - that he/she has read and meditated the essential concepts (though of course not all the examples!) of Pasquali's masterwork, and the main historical phases of the philological method as reconstructed by Timpanaro; - that he/she is able to translate two/three passages from the syllabus discussed in class, as well as to present correctly the history of the textual tradition starting from the indications of the critical apparatus and projecting them against the wider background of the transmission of the author considered.

Frontal teaching, with the projection of images.

Italian

We hope to be able to organise a short visit to the manuscript room of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

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