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Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners
John Wright’s thorough, up-to-date revision of Clyde Pharr’s Homeric Greek is presented by the University of Oklahoma Press for use in first-year Greek courses in colleges and preparatory schools. This revised edition adds concise sections on grammar that will be of immense aid to the student who has not previously learned Latin grammar. With a judicious hand Wright has removed some extraneous commentary on the Iliad, but the essence of Pharr’s text–which has stood the test of time–has been left untouched.
Pharr explains in his eloquent introduction why the ideal approach to the language is with Homer rather than with the writers of Attic Greek. The Homeric method has, indeed, met with remarkable success; Wright’s newly revised text will undoubtedly spark fresh enthusiasm in both students and professors of Greek.
While this book contains more than the first-year student could easily master, it does not attempt to catalog “every stray Homeric form…. Its first object is to teach beginners to read Greek intelligently and with pleasure.”
Pharr explains in his eloquent introduction why the ideal approach to the language is with Homer rather than with the writers of Attic Greek. The Homeric method has, indeed, met with remarkable success; Wright’s newly revised text will undoubtedly spark fresh enthusiasm in both students and professors of Greek.
While this book contains more than the first-year student could easily master, it does not attempt to catalog “every stray Homeric form…. Its first object is to teach beginners to read Greek intelligently and with pleasure.”
414 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
23 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Clyde Pharr
9 books3 followersClyde Pharr was an American classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, Southwestern Presbyterian University (now Rhodes College), Vanderbilt University (where he was head of the classics department for many years), and, finally, at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 7, 2023
I worked through an old copy of this book one summer while in college between my first year of introductory Attic Greek and a Homer course I planned to take the following fall. In the fall semester of Greek 1 there were twenty students in the class. In the spring semester that number had dropped to ten. In the Homer class the following year there were perhaps five.
Why learn Greek? This is a fair question. For me it seemed simple. Even though today the number of students who seriously study classics is infinitesimally small, the discipline of classics formed the foundation of university studies for many centuries. Indeed, up until the late 1800's respectable colleges would not even accept you without a satisfactory grade on an entrance examination in Greek or Latin. So Greek was a subject that had been around for a while -- since 1516, I later discovered, when Oxford University established for the first time a chair in Greek (to the consternation of Latinists).
People attend college nowadays for reasons that are very different from those of yesteryear. Today's students -- certainly the vast majority -- are basically interested in getting their ticket punched so they can have credentials for employment. They want to get a job and make money. A degree is the sine qua non for material success. Needless to say, many who follow a purely practical path in their higher education consider Greek studies to be utterly worthless. In fact, more than a few are openly scornful of classical studies and think that those who pursue them are at best wasting their time and at worst completely insane.
I figured I would worry about a job later. Learning Greek was a chance to participate in a journey of mental growth, an exciting challenge. And I really wanted to read Homer and other authors in Greek! Translations would not do -- they only obscured the true meaning of the original works and veiled their many beauties. I had read Walden and was impressed by Thoreau's deep love of the classics, nowhere better expressed than in his chapter entitled "Reading." My thinking was that if an author of Thoreau's brilliance was such a lover of Greek and Greek literature, it had to be good!
It would be silly to assume that something is worth studying simply because it has been around for many centuries. But I had a feeling (which eventually became a conviction) that Greek and Latin had maintained such a deep influence in educational circles because the works written in these languages were simply superior. I took this on faith from my learned professors, and they were of course correct. I owe to them an enormous debt since they were the ones who opened the door for me to the vast treasury of priceless riches that constitute the literature of classical antiquity. Is there a more mind-blowing play than Oedipus? An epic poem of greater humanity or more enduring artistic merit than the Odyssey? A work of history that offers a greater degree of analytical insight than Thucydides? These literary monuments and others composed by the Greeks constitute the Himalayan mountain ridge of Western literature. To read them, or, to state it more honestly, to try to read them in Greek is to struggle, endure, and partake of the clear and radiant atmosphere at the summit.
I had been an indifferent student in h.s. I enjoyed books but rarely read the ones that were assigned to me. It was only in college that I finally figured out how to study and learning Greek in particular gave me a purpose and a goal. It challenged me as no other subject (excluding mathematics) and forced me to work very hard in mastering its seemingly endless intricacies. The labor that it required was another motivating force for me. Anything that required this much work simply had to be good, in keeping with an old Greek proverb, "beautiful things are difficult.” I am still learning it and will continue on the journey until I am on my death bed, where I hope to be still unravelling a difficult construction or learning a new word.
I skipped the initial chapters and began at that part of the book that presents the first book of the Iliad (broken down into chapters with short blocks of text, vocabulary and notes). Looking back now over forty years ago to the summer weeks that I spent working slowly through this book, I can recall vividly the excitement and astonishment I felt at my first encounter with Homer in his own language. The priest's plea for his daughter's return, Agamemnon's curt dismissal, Apollo hearing the priest's prayer before descending from Olympus, the destructive plague -- these events within just a few dozen lines formed the ominous prelude to the terrible quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. I was captivated by Homer's masterful narration and the remarkable clarity and economy of his verse.
As I worked my way deeper into the beginning of the Iliad, I was riveted by the way Homer expressed his ideas and images with such power and beauty. Perhaps more than anything it was the dramatic power of his verse that captivated me. I confess that I was absolutely spellbound. How could anything possibly be this good? I kept asking myself this question, hungry to read further and learn more. I was finally in the hands of an author who surpassed everything that I had ever previously known. For me, this initial encounter with Homer was a kind of literary Rubicon. I had crossed it; there would be no turning back, and his two great poems would become a lifelong preoccupation.
As for this excellent book, it is rivaled only by Schoder and Horrigan's A Reading Course in Homeric Greek, Book 1 (see my review.) It features a complete vocabulary, helpful notes on the Greek text of Iliad 1, and very thorough appendices with full morphological paradigms as well as an extensive treatment of Homeric grammar. If you want to learn Homeric Greek, this book would be a good place to start.
Why learn Greek? This is a fair question. For me it seemed simple. Even though today the number of students who seriously study classics is infinitesimally small, the discipline of classics formed the foundation of university studies for many centuries. Indeed, up until the late 1800's respectable colleges would not even accept you without a satisfactory grade on an entrance examination in Greek or Latin. So Greek was a subject that had been around for a while -- since 1516, I later discovered, when Oxford University established for the first time a chair in Greek (to the consternation of Latinists).
People attend college nowadays for reasons that are very different from those of yesteryear. Today's students -- certainly the vast majority -- are basically interested in getting their ticket punched so they can have credentials for employment. They want to get a job and make money. A degree is the sine qua non for material success. Needless to say, many who follow a purely practical path in their higher education consider Greek studies to be utterly worthless. In fact, more than a few are openly scornful of classical studies and think that those who pursue them are at best wasting their time and at worst completely insane.
I figured I would worry about a job later. Learning Greek was a chance to participate in a journey of mental growth, an exciting challenge. And I really wanted to read Homer and other authors in Greek! Translations would not do -- they only obscured the true meaning of the original works and veiled their many beauties. I had read Walden and was impressed by Thoreau's deep love of the classics, nowhere better expressed than in his chapter entitled "Reading." My thinking was that if an author of Thoreau's brilliance was such a lover of Greek and Greek literature, it had to be good!
It would be silly to assume that something is worth studying simply because it has been around for many centuries. But I had a feeling (which eventually became a conviction) that Greek and Latin had maintained such a deep influence in educational circles because the works written in these languages were simply superior. I took this on faith from my learned professors, and they were of course correct. I owe to them an enormous debt since they were the ones who opened the door for me to the vast treasury of priceless riches that constitute the literature of classical antiquity. Is there a more mind-blowing play than Oedipus? An epic poem of greater humanity or more enduring artistic merit than the Odyssey? A work of history that offers a greater degree of analytical insight than Thucydides? These literary monuments and others composed by the Greeks constitute the Himalayan mountain ridge of Western literature. To read them, or, to state it more honestly, to try to read them in Greek is to struggle, endure, and partake of the clear and radiant atmosphere at the summit.
I had been an indifferent student in h.s. I enjoyed books but rarely read the ones that were assigned to me. It was only in college that I finally figured out how to study and learning Greek in particular gave me a purpose and a goal. It challenged me as no other subject (excluding mathematics) and forced me to work very hard in mastering its seemingly endless intricacies. The labor that it required was another motivating force for me. Anything that required this much work simply had to be good, in keeping with an old Greek proverb, "beautiful things are difficult.” I am still learning it and will continue on the journey until I am on my death bed, where I hope to be still unravelling a difficult construction or learning a new word.
I skipped the initial chapters and began at that part of the book that presents the first book of the Iliad (broken down into chapters with short blocks of text, vocabulary and notes). Looking back now over forty years ago to the summer weeks that I spent working slowly through this book, I can recall vividly the excitement and astonishment I felt at my first encounter with Homer in his own language. The priest's plea for his daughter's return, Agamemnon's curt dismissal, Apollo hearing the priest's prayer before descending from Olympus, the destructive plague -- these events within just a few dozen lines formed the ominous prelude to the terrible quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. I was captivated by Homer's masterful narration and the remarkable clarity and economy of his verse.
As I worked my way deeper into the beginning of the Iliad, I was riveted by the way Homer expressed his ideas and images with such power and beauty. Perhaps more than anything it was the dramatic power of his verse that captivated me. I confess that I was absolutely spellbound. How could anything possibly be this good? I kept asking myself this question, hungry to read further and learn more. I was finally in the hands of an author who surpassed everything that I had ever previously known. For me, this initial encounter with Homer was a kind of literary Rubicon. I had crossed it; there would be no turning back, and his two great poems would become a lifelong preoccupation.
As for this excellent book, it is rivaled only by Schoder and Horrigan's A Reading Course in Homeric Greek, Book 1 (see my review.) It features a complete vocabulary, helpful notes on the Greek text of Iliad 1, and very thorough appendices with full morphological paradigms as well as an extensive treatment of Homeric grammar. If you want to learn Homeric Greek, this book would be a good place to start.
March 17, 2022
This book aims to teach Homeric Greek to people who don't have any background in any language other than English—that is, it's not a supplement for people who already know the typical Classical Attic, but it's an actual from-scratch course teaching Homeric Greek in the same way a normal language is taught.
This is, of course, an absolutely bonkers idea for all the obvious reasons, including the fact that Homeric Greek was never a spoken language, that turning Homeric forms into paradigms means creating forms that not only didn't exist, but often couldn't (because they don't fit into dactylic hexameter), that Homeric Greek's multitude of linguistic strata means that a lot of slots in paradigms will have a multitude of alternative forms (and this variety is never explained, it turns out), and that every other work out there presupposes familiarity with Attic, so any wretch who struggles through this will have to unlearn and then relearn a ton of stuff if they ever want to engage with the broader academic community.
(There actually is a four-page introduction to Attic Greek included at the end of the seventy-seven lessons, but it's slapdash and inadequate, several times giving up on explaining a concept and telling the reader to "see any good Greek grammar" instead.)
Perhaps you don't care about Greek as a language and only want to be able to consume the Iliad and the Odyssey shallowly as fun little stories without having to know about their history and manner of composition, though (after all, there is precedent for people learning a specific dialect of Greek to be able to read just a single text: certain breeds of (American) Protestant learning just Koine for the New Testament)—will this at least help you do that? Not even really that.
As someone who learned (Attic) Greek from zero not that long ago, I do have a number of didactic quibbles with the generally old-fashioned approach taken by Pharr and his successors, but those really are just quibbles and obviously the fundamental approach taken has worked adequately for many decades in teaching Classical Attic. More serious is the fact that key concepts just aren't explained fully or correctly, including dactylic hexameter itself: that gets five pages that contain just enough information to scan the first two lines of Iliad (including the concept of synizesis, for Πηληϊάδεω) and then direct the student to scan more on their own without so much as a suggestion that e.g. Attic or epic correption exist. The reference grammar does contain the most laborious formulation of Attic correption I've seen yet† in the phonology section for some reason, and epic correption is finally mentioned very briefly (blink and you'll miss it—I was looking for it and I did on the first pass) one hundred and ten pages later in the prosody section; neither phenomenon is given a name.
Not many people end up using this course, alhamdulillah, but if you frequent the sort of online forums where people sometimes come for help with Greek, you'll inevitably run into at least one; as far as I can tell, everyone who does use this course ends up confused and with tons of very basic and often reasonable questions the book can't begin to answer.
And on the topic of the reference grammar: that makes up about a quarter of the book and you might be forgiven for hoping to extract some value from that. Unfortunately, it's constructed purely to support the lessons, not to stand on its own or provide the sort of information you might want as someone who recognises Homeric morphology as worth commenting on. Pharr also had yet to join his contemporaries in the 20th century, somehow, and his successors have made no attempt to bring any of the terminology into the 21st: expect gutturals, smooth and rough mutes, improper diphthongs, first and second aorists and perfects (alright, those are still current in some places), and lots of circumlocutions because the word "sonorant" apparently hasn't been invented yet. (Of these, "mute" for plosive is the one that never stops annoying.)
On the rare occasions this part of the text does dip its toes into trying to explain why a thing is the way it is instead of just listing the thing, it often takes a turn for the bizarre, such as when it "explains" the accentuation of πατρός and πατρί by pointing to the rules of accentuation for monosyllabic nouns (which "regularly" get the accent on the ending when they turn disyllabic in the oblique cases; broadly true, but the many exceptions aren't even hinted at) and claiming that πάτηρ [sic!] was originally the monosyllabic (!) πατρ̥ (!!)! Apart from anything else—two centuries of comparative Indo-European linguistics, that is—what do you think that ring means, Clyde Pharr?
Shockingly disappointing. I had hoped to use this book to support the Greek Epic Lit class I've got this semester, but I'm going to have to look elsewhere.
--------
† If a mute, [sic] followed by a liquid, or by the nasals μ or ν, comes after a short vowel, and the mute and liquid (or nasal) come within the same word or the same part of a compound, the syllable is common, that is, it may be either long or short, according to the requirements of the verse.
This is, of course, an absolutely bonkers idea for all the obvious reasons, including the fact that Homeric Greek was never a spoken language, that turning Homeric forms into paradigms means creating forms that not only didn't exist, but often couldn't (because they don't fit into dactylic hexameter), that Homeric Greek's multitude of linguistic strata means that a lot of slots in paradigms will have a multitude of alternative forms (and this variety is never explained, it turns out), and that every other work out there presupposes familiarity with Attic, so any wretch who struggles through this will have to unlearn and then relearn a ton of stuff if they ever want to engage with the broader academic community.
(There actually is a four-page introduction to Attic Greek included at the end of the seventy-seven lessons, but it's slapdash and inadequate, several times giving up on explaining a concept and telling the reader to "see any good Greek grammar" instead.)
Perhaps you don't care about Greek as a language and only want to be able to consume the Iliad and the Odyssey shallowly as fun little stories without having to know about their history and manner of composition, though (after all, there is precedent for people learning a specific dialect of Greek to be able to read just a single text: certain breeds of (American) Protestant learning just Koine for the New Testament)—will this at least help you do that? Not even really that.
As someone who learned (Attic) Greek from zero not that long ago, I do have a number of didactic quibbles with the generally old-fashioned approach taken by Pharr and his successors, but those really are just quibbles and obviously the fundamental approach taken has worked adequately for many decades in teaching Classical Attic. More serious is the fact that key concepts just aren't explained fully or correctly, including dactylic hexameter itself: that gets five pages that contain just enough information to scan the first two lines of Iliad (including the concept of synizesis, for Πηληϊάδεω) and then direct the student to scan more on their own without so much as a suggestion that e.g. Attic or epic correption exist. The reference grammar does contain the most laborious formulation of Attic correption I've seen yet† in the phonology section for some reason, and epic correption is finally mentioned very briefly (blink and you'll miss it—I was looking for it and I did on the first pass) one hundred and ten pages later in the prosody section; neither phenomenon is given a name.
Not many people end up using this course, alhamdulillah, but if you frequent the sort of online forums where people sometimes come for help with Greek, you'll inevitably run into at least one; as far as I can tell, everyone who does use this course ends up confused and with tons of very basic and often reasonable questions the book can't begin to answer.
And on the topic of the reference grammar: that makes up about a quarter of the book and you might be forgiven for hoping to extract some value from that. Unfortunately, it's constructed purely to support the lessons, not to stand on its own or provide the sort of information you might want as someone who recognises Homeric morphology as worth commenting on. Pharr also had yet to join his contemporaries in the 20th century, somehow, and his successors have made no attempt to bring any of the terminology into the 21st: expect gutturals, smooth and rough mutes, improper diphthongs, first and second aorists and perfects (alright, those are still current in some places), and lots of circumlocutions because the word "sonorant" apparently hasn't been invented yet. (Of these, "mute" for plosive is the one that never stops annoying.)
On the rare occasions this part of the text does dip its toes into trying to explain why a thing is the way it is instead of just listing the thing, it often takes a turn for the bizarre, such as when it "explains" the accentuation of πατρός and πατρί by pointing to the rules of accentuation for monosyllabic nouns (which "regularly" get the accent on the ending when they turn disyllabic in the oblique cases; broadly true, but the many exceptions aren't even hinted at) and claiming that πάτηρ [sic!] was originally the monosyllabic (!) πατρ̥ (!!)! Apart from anything else—two centuries of comparative Indo-European linguistics, that is—what do you think that ring means, Clyde Pharr?
Shockingly disappointing. I had hoped to use this book to support the Greek Epic Lit class I've got this semester, but I'm going to have to look elsewhere.
--------
† If a mute, [sic] followed by a liquid, or by the nasals μ or ν, comes after a short vowel, and the mute and liquid (or nasal) come within the same word or the same part of a compound, the syllable is common, that is, it may be either long or short, according to the requirements of the verse.
July 12, 2020
An excellent book for someone with New Testament or Attic Greek to take the plunge on their own into epic poetry. Pharr uses an inductive method so that after just a few preliminary chapters one is reading the Iliad, 5 lines a chapter at first but increasing to 10-20 lines at the end. By then one has read all 611 lines of Book 1 of the Iliad. The majestic beauty of Homeric poetry surpasses all translations and is worth the effort. I like Pharr's idea that the study of Ancient Greek should begin with epic, to ensure that all students experience something of Homer in the original.
June 2, 2020
My relationship with this book is complicated by the fact that it was the first Greek textbook I ever used, at a time when I felt I needed a mallet to get it into my head. As in any language, practice, practice, practice...
Read
December 24, 2017I am switching books. I cannot stand the layout. In each lesson, Pharr gives a brief summary of the objectives, then you must flip to the back of the book to read the material for the lesson. And they are not in order. For example, in one lesson, you may read sections 625-650, 950, and 1125. In the next you may read 825-878 and 1203. I tried using bookmarks and various other markers, but at this point am entirely frustrated with having them everywhere and with constantly flipping all around just for one lesson. I do not find this method user friendly, especially for a beginner engaging in self-study.
April 4, 2008
More evidence that I am good at many things but not great at any one thing.
Menin aeide indeed.
Menin aeide indeed.
January 10, 2017
READ THIS 235 TIMES ICRAVE DEATH, RECOMMENDED
December 3, 2025
it is difficult to read and isn't as good as joint adsociation
January 29, 2010
Good, comprehensive, but very fast-paced text. Unfortunately, it was a library book, and there's no library in the world that lets you check out language books for long enough to really use them. (um, I'll need this for the next year and a half?)
The other thing with this is that it's really, as the title suggests, focused on Homer's dialect and vocab, which makes it un-useful to those who want a good basic classical greek education (they would likely want the more standard Attic dialect) or those who are headed for biblical scholarship.
Perhaps the quick pacing is because the author assumes a certain amount of pre-education in one of these more common applications of Greek.
The other thing with this is that it's really, as the title suggests, focused on Homer's dialect and vocab, which makes it un-useful to those who want a good basic classical greek education (they would likely want the more standard Attic dialect) or those who are headed for biblical scholarship.
Perhaps the quick pacing is because the author assumes a certain amount of pre-education in one of these more common applications of Greek.
Read
August 8, 2008I've returned to this book often lately. Aided by the Loeb bilingual Homer and Alexander Pope's Iliad in the glorious Easton Press edition, Pharr has helped me see why many people consider the Iliad the greatest work of all literature. Greek will always be Greek to me, of course; from my vantage Shakespeare is better than Homer. But Homer's dynamite.
March 5, 2008
This helped me limp through some passages from the Iliad. I wish I'd sat down for a real course. The Ancient Greek I had was mostly Plato.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews