About the Book
"To teach correct Latin and to explain the poets" were the two standard duties of Roman teachers. Not only was a command of literary Latin a prerequisite for political and social advancement, but a sense of Latin's history and importance contributed to the Romans' understanding of their own cultural identity. Put plainly, philology-the study of language and texts-was important at Rome. Critics, Compilers, and Commentators is the first comprehensive introduction to
the history, forms, and texts of Roman philology. James Zetzel traces the changing role and status of Latin as revealed in the ways it was explained and taught by the Romans themselves. In addition, he
provides a descriptive bibliography of hundreds of scholarly texts from antiquity, listing editions, translations, and secondary literature. Recovering a neglected but crucial area of Roman intellectual life, this book will be an essential resource for students of Roman literature and intellectual history, medievalists, and historians of education and language science.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Part I: A Short History of Roman Scholarship
Chapter 1: The Face of Learning
Chapter 2: The Origins of Roman Grammar
Chapter 3: Word and World: Varro and his Contemporaries
Chapter 4: Past and Present: From Caecilius Epirota to Valerius Probus
Chapter 5: Finding the Right Word
Chapter 6: Dictionaries, Glossaries, Encyclopedias
Chapter 7: Commentary and Exegesis
Chapter 8: Grammar and Grammarians
Chapter 9: Author, Audience, Text
Chapter 10: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Chapter 11: Commentaries
Chapter 12: Grammars and Other Forms of Erudition
Chapter 13: Early Medieval Grammars
List of Works Cited
Indices
Manuscripts
General
About the Author :
James E.G. Zetzel is Anthon Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at Columbia University. He studied at Harvard University and the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London; he has taught at Brown and Princeton Universities and for the last 32 years at Columbia University. He has written extensively on the literature of the first century BCE and on the history of classical scholarship. He has also published two volumes of translations of
Cicero.
Review :
"Critics, Compilers, and Commentators is a wonderful resource. The works with which it deals "all explain something about Latin texts or the Latin language" (3) and were all written or compiled or otherwise arranged and digested between the beginnings of Latin culture and the end of the eighth century CE. Zetzel has wrestled a billowing mass of material into nine crisp chapters under the rubric "A short history of Roman scholarship"; an extensive
bibliographic guide; and forty-seven pages of Works Cited, including digital resources. Just one of these three sections would be worth the price of the book for anyone interested in the teaching and preservation of
Latin culture over the longue durée. There is, as far as I know, no comparable work." -- Catherine Conybeare, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"Critics, Compilers, and Commentators is, in short, a repository of erudition about language and the study of it over a period of a thousand years, by a scholar who is himself widely recognized for his erudition about the Latin language. There is nothing else quite like it, and now that we have it, scholars interested in these matters will wonder how they managed without it for so long." -- Jennifer Ferriss-Hill, University of Miami , Classical
Journal Online
"Critics, Compilers, and Commentators remains clear and methodical, yet stimulating. The book's true value, however, lies in the bibliographic guide, which represents an astounding amount of work and may act as an indispensable reference guide not only for students of Roman literature, but also for medievalists and those interested in the history of education, linguistics, and intellectual history." -- Emma Wall, Durham University, The Journal of
Classics Teaching
"a massive and remarkable study of Roman philology from antiquity into the early Middle Ages Editors Susanna Braund and Zara Martirosova Torlone gather twenty-eight chapters ranging from humanism to the twenty-first century. Translations into English are well represented...it's an eye-opening tour." -- Christopher Whitton, University of Cambridge, Greece & Rome
"Zetzel has done a splendid job of breathing life into the apparently dry pedantic world of the schoolroom, and his account of a vast array of literature manages to be both helpful to the scholar and of value to the interested reader whose own grammar studies perhaps began (and ended) with B.H. Kennedy." -- John Godwin, Classics for all
"Zetzel's volume is an enormous achievement, covering a much longer historical period than any discussion of Roman philology has done before, at least in such a detailed and consistent way. It constitutes a most valuable tool and an indispensable starting point for anyone studying the history of Roman philology in general and of Latin grammaticography in particular." -- Historiographia Linguistica
"This unparalleled work fills an immense gap in the history of Roman philology. Experts and general readers alike owe a profound debt to Prof. Zetzel. Only a scholar with mastery of the grammatical textual tradition in its entirety could deliver such a methodical, lucid, and consistently stimulating account." -- Alessandro Garcea, Sorbonne Université
"This is a book that anyone with a serious interest in classical Latin language and literature will want to own and read. It represents a truly staggering amount of chalcenteric labor, carried out to meet the highest standard of excellence, by a scholar who has no peer in this field today. It is a great achievement and will be recognized as an indispensable resource for generations." -- Robert A. Kaster, Princeton University
"James Zetzel has written two outstanding books in one. The second half of Critics, Compilers, and Commentators is a modern portrait gallery of our ancestors, the ancient scholars who hover behind our Latin texts. The first half tells a fascinating story of how the work they did coalesced into a cultural project." -- Peter White, University of Chicago
