Customer Reviews

Homeric Dictionary (Paperduck)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This dictionary was invaluable while I was translating The Iliad. It is amazingly comprehensive, full of wonderful illustrations that accompany the definitions and includes clear instructions on how to read Homeric verse.

Autenrieth's Homeric Dictionary is an indispensible tool for reading Homer in the original. Because it focuses only on Homeric vocabulary, it is easier to use than standard lexica that include thousands of other words and later, non-Homeric meanings for Homeric words. Illustrations and detailed explanations are supplied for words describing armor and weapons and the like, which is helpful and not offered by most other lexica. Autenrieth is also more convenient than the glossaries found in beginner's texts because it allows the reader to look up words in a separate volume rather than turning to the back of the same book.

The introduction to the text claims that students should be able to read Homer with this dictionary almost twice as fast as they would with a standard lexicon. This may sound somewhat overblown, but in my experience it is true. Anyone reading a considerable amount of Homer would do well to pick up this volume and save themselves some time.

The only unfortunate thing is that this isn't available in hardcover. Why publishers increasingly fail to recognize the value of offering hardbound editions of reference works that are likely to be used often, I just don't understand. Even still, the Homeric Dictionary is worth owning if you plan to spend any serious time with Homer in Greek.

Autenrieth is a little outdated now, although the pictures are amusing. A better dictionary for Homeric Greek is Richard Cunliffe's Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect.

Autenrieth will do the job and its illustrations are helpful, but the work is inferior to Cunliffe's A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, which includes the vocabulary of the Homeric Hymns (in addition to the Iliad and Odyssey) as well as book and line references to all the occurences a given word appears within the Homeric corpus.

This dictionary is quite hard to work with... It doesn't quite give you what you usually want... Actually what you're mostly going to find is the number of the lines where the word appears... which isn't quite useful depending on your goal... Plus the words are badly defined... it's going to give you different weird endings sometimes mixed up.. that you won't even you the case or gender .. etc..

But I found it much more useful with the Odyssey than with the Iliad...

T would say this dictionary is for experts.. and as an Intermediate student.. I was disappointed by it..