Scrinium Classical Antiquity

WERSINGER, A.G., La sphère et l'intervalle. Le schème de l'Harmonie dans la pensée des anciens Grecs d'Homère à Platon. Jéroôme Millon, Grenoble, 2008. 379p. Paperback. ‘A.-G. Wersinger (…) is a philosopher (…), and the concept of ‘harmonia’ is, for her, not limited to music. Second, she aims at understanding how the notion of ‘harmonia’ was born in Greece and developed from its beginnings until classical times, though mainly in archaic times. In my view, both books (also Andrew Barker’s’The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece’ - ND) are complementary and very important for modern scholars who study philosophy and musicology as well as mathematics, because all of these sciences were studied together in antiquity. (…) Wersinger considers the evolution of the notion of ‘harmonia’ in Greek thought. (…) In sum, I would say that Wersinger’s work consists in trying to isolate Presocratic philosophy from all the Pythagorean, Platonic, or Aristotelian elements. These schools have studies the Presocratic philosophers but have interpreted them in their own way. I personally think that Wersinger succeeds in understanding how the ancient Greeks elaborated this very difficult notion of ‘harmonia’ (not represented as circle any more, but as an interval’ - ND). Her method is meticulous, her knowledge of Greek philology and philosophy indisputable. For other sciences like musicology, she has consulted great specialists, which validates her results: te bibliography is complete and the historiography well digested. Of course, this book is sometimes difficult to understand because of the complexity of the subject, but the author tries to help her reader: each chapter concludes with a clear recapitulation of the most important points of the argument. For all these reasons, I warmly recommend Wersinger’s remarkable essay.’ (SYLVAN PERROT, Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science). € 50.00 (Antiquarian)

WEST, M.L., The Making of the Odyssey. Oxford University Press, 2017. 1st paperback ed. XI,315p. Paperback. 'An Honorary Fellow of All Souls, Martin West was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2013, a high and richly deserved honour for perhaps the most brilliant and productive Greek scholar of his generation. The Homeric epics have always been a favourite stamping ground of his, and here with his usual formidable confidence, acuity and mastery of detail he marshals all the evidence at his disposal to conclude that the Odyssey (whose poet he calls ‘Q’) was not composed by the same poet as the Iliad, though Q certainly knew the Iliad; that it was composed somewhere in the Western Mediterranean (perhaps Euboea or Attica) around 630 BC as a rival to the Iliad (but surely someone would have know the poet’s name at that late date?); and that it is possible to discern various earlier versions of the poem on which Q constructed his own supreme effort. (...) This is a marvellous book by a superb scholar at the height of his powers. It rests on the assumption that the problems in the Odyssey arise not from interpolation but from the faults of the author. Whether it will wholly lay to rest the ghost of Denys Page, whose utterly persuasive and unmatchably witty The Homeric Odyssey (1955) introduced many of us to the joys of Homeric multiple authorship, remains to be seen.' (PETER JONES in Classics for All 07.04.2015). € 34.00 (New)

WHALLON, W., Formula, Character, and Context. Studies in Homeric, Old English, and Old Testament Poetry. Center for Hellenic Studies / Harvard University Press, Washington DC / Cambridge (Mass.), 1969. XIII,225p. Cloth. Small personal library marks on tail spine as well as free endpaper. Name on free endpaper. 'The later chapters make fascinating reading to the Homerist. By avoiding lofty generalities and addressing itself to specific questions this collection of papers makes a study in comparative literature of exceptional interest and value.' (J.B. HAINSWORTH in The Classical Review (New Series), 1970, p. 71). From the library of the late Sir Kenneth James Dover. € 29.50 (Antiquarian)

WHALLON, W., Formula, Character, and context. Studies in Homeric, Old English, and Old Testament Poetry. Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, 1969. XIII,225p. Original cloth with dust wrps. Nice copy. 'The later chapters make fascinating reading to the Homerist. By avoiding lofty generalities and addressing itself to specific questions this collection of papers makes a study in comparative literature of exceptional interest and value.' (J.B. HAINSWORTH in The Classical Review (New Series), 1970, p. 71). € 29.50 (Antiquarian)

WHITMAN, C.H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1967.3rd impr. XV,365p. Original terracotta cloth with dust wrps. Chart printed to inside cover, as well as to folding plate. Dust wrps slightly worn to the edges. Signature on free endpaper. ‘Students of Homer should be grateful to Cedric Whitman for this work, new and refreshing in approach and content, in its avoidance of animus and polemic. (…) In this work one discovers a judicious mind, a sensitive reading of Homer’s poetry and a wide range of scholarly competence. Whitman is a unitarian neither naive nor assertive, who sets as his task to show ‘the intuitive, poetic logic of the ‘Iliad’’, the cohesiveness which gives it its force. His argument is from design: the hand of of a master with skilful deployment of formulaic speech has imposed upon traditional material an inner unity of structure and imagistic consistency. Less stressed at the outset but emerging as a major thesis is the view that the unity of the ‘Iliad’ derives from a conception of heroism (p.14) which can only be a personal and individual one. (…) He shows the important contribution to be made to Homeric studies by archeologist and linguist as well as anthropologist, folklorist et alii. He hopes less to extract a conclusion (…) than to find a ‘justifiable attitude, an honest approach, from the detailed findings of specialised researches, with all their doubts, reservations, and scientific suspension of judgment. Whitman properly holds in high esteem Milman Parry’s contribution to our understanding of the oral nature of Homeric verse. But Parry’s findings are only the beginning of Whitman’s analysis of Homeric style and composition.’ (JAMES ARMSTRONG in The Classical Journal, 1959, p.232). € 35.00 (Antiquarian)

WILLIMCZIK, K., (ed.), Leibesübungen bei Homer. Quellen zur Geschichte der Leibesübungen in der Antike. Karl Hofmann, Schorndorf, n.d.(>1969). 73p. Sewn. € 13.50 (Antiquarian)

WOOD, M., Op zoek naar de Trojaanse oorlog. Rheynboek, Woerden, 1997. 270p. ills. Paperback. € 10.00 (Antiquarian)

ZIMMERMANN, H.-J., Alexander Popes Noten zu Homer. Eine Manuskript- und Quellenstudie. Carl Winter, Heidelberg, 1966. 421p. Paperback. € 25.00 (Antiquarian)