Tom Roper's Weblog

Classical blogs

I've discovered classical blogs, chiefly rogueclassisism, blogographos and one from Leicester, the Undoctored Past

Ars longa vita brevis

Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀζύς, ή δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή
This is one of those moments that give a greater pleasure than can ever be found in bed, at the table, from a bottle or at the racecourse. I've cracked how to do classical Greek script, including accents, in TypePad, thanks to GreekKeys

Transliteration of classical Greek

I'm perturbed by news on lis-rare-books that the Library of Congress is proposing to change their advices on transliteraing classical Greek, instiutionalising the inappropriate modern Greek practice of ioticisation. I can't see that they've actually put these proposals up on their web site, but wiser people than me are opposing them fiercely.

Sappho in LRB

In my long struggle to learn classical Greek (which has become much easier now I attend the splendid classes at the University of Sussex taught by Vassiliki Dimitropoulou) I took a couple of months ago to trying to read Sappho. Apart from the subject matter, I also thought that the brevity of her surviving work might make it easier for a tyro like me, differences between her dialect and the Attic I'm learning notwithstanding. Even with the help of a parallel text from the Loeb library , I'm finding it hard going.
But the London Review of Books has an article by Emily Wilson reviewing a new translation of the poems by Anne Carson, a book on the reception of Sappho by Margaret Reynolds and Erica Jong's new novel Sappho's Leap.