Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford Classical Monographs) [Hardcover]

Tim Rood (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198152566 | ISBN-13: 978-0198152569 | Publication Date: January 14, 1999

This book analyzes the narrative technique of Thucydides, relating his shifting uses of various techniques to his explanatory aims, and showing how he narrates the progression of one war and at the same time exposes various truths about the human condition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stimulating and important.... Rood has much to say that is new and exciting. He has brought to the task wide reading and a great sensitivity to his author, and he has applied the techniques of narratology to Thucydides' text (dare I say, to any ancient historical text) more expertly than anyone before.... A rich and sensitive reading of Thucydides.... The fundamental starting point for future analyses."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"A careful and subtle book, and a very important one for historians as well as literary students of Thucydides.... A really accomplished work of scholarship."--Classical Philology

"A fascinating and important work."--Classical Review

"Rood succeeds admirably and convincingly in showing how internal disunity led to Athens' defeat in war.... The real merit of Rood's study consists in the detail with which he supports his contentions."--Classical World

"All students of Thucydides will benefit from this book, and undergraduates will be particularly well served by the introduction, which offers an unbeatable summary of the Peloponnesian War and overview of Thucydides' oeuvre."--The Classical Outlook

"Rood makes the case for a fresh reading of the great Greek historian, literary stylist, and student of human nature using the tools of modern narratology....Upper-division undergraduates and above."--Choice

About the Author

T. C. B. Rood is at The Queen's College, Oxford.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198152566
• ISBN-13: 978-0198152569
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,887,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much to admire here, October 4, 2005

By 

James Jan Sullivan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford Classical Monographs) (Paperback)

Tim Rood's book has become a must read for students of Thucydides, a rare accomplishment for an author so widely written about. Rood, building upon the foundations of W.R. Connor's 1984 THUCYDIDES and the work of Simon Hornblower, which are both scrupulously noted, applies the theoretical approach of narratology to Thucydides' history. In short, narratology, when applied to historical works, argues that we read the text not as an objective representation of past reality but as a rhetorical product. To this end, Rood and the narratologists suggest applying tools culled from the workshop of literary criticism to help explicate the text, e.g. focalization, temporal anachrony, etc.

This is an obviously salutary approach, judging by the results. Many passages that have long frustrated critics have been addressed from fresh angles and the history as a whole has been given a new explanation. The theoretical approach will frustrate those who are used to more conventional approaches and the insistence on the non-objective status of historical texts is always a kind of heresy to some. But for those willing to accept (or overlook) these matters, there is much to admire in Rood's incisive and careful analyses.

4 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A luminous comentary, March 23, 2000

By 

"mcnabbsack-man" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford Classical Monographs) (Hardcover)

As a relative new-comer to the delights of Thucydides I was at first a little in awe of the author's obvious scholarship. The book was rigorous and well-ordered, as I had expected, having heard much of Timothy Rood's abilities while at University. In particular, the areas of the book where Mr Rood moved from the specific to the general were a delight, and I hope that he should see fit to expand his horizons a little were he to author another work in this field. Chapter 5 of the book, where he animadverts to the inevitable tension between the narrative and dialogic elements of the "History", is particularly luminous. Areas that could have been explicated better include the bizarre episode involving the bathing of soldiers' feet in hot water, referred to in Chapter 7, something that has mystified Thucydides scholars for years, and the barely comprehensible references to drunkenness that pepper later parts of the "History". Aside from those few omissions and a litter of singular infelicities of expression in the last two chapters, the work is a numinous one, indispensable for all advanced students wishing to immerse themselves, to quote Gustave Sephier, in "the clamorous and vociferating uproar of Thucydidean narrative".