• Description
• Table of contents
• Excerpt
• Index
• Copyright
• Frontmatter

Details

• Page extent: 612 pages
• Size: 216 x 138 mm
• Weight: 0.92 kg

Library of Congress

• Dewey number: 888/.0108
• Dewey version: 22
• LC Classification: PA4449.E5 C5 2004
• LC Subject headings:
  • Character sketches

Library of Congress Record

Theophrastus: Characters

Series: Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries (No. 43)

Theophrastus

Edited and translated by James Diggle

University of Cambridge

Hardback

 (ISBN-13: 9780521839808 | ISBN-10: 0521839807)

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Theophrastus' Characters is a collection of 30 short character-sketches of various types of individuals who might be met in the streets of Athens in the late fourth century BC. It is a work which had a profound influence on European literature, and this is a detailed and elaborate treatment of it. This edition presents an improved text, a translation which is designed both to be readable and to bring out fully the nuances of the very difficult Greek, and a commentary which covers every feature of the text and its interpretation and offers particularly full elucidation of the often enigmatic references to contemporary social practices and historical events. There is also a lengthy introduction, which discusses the antecedents and affiliations of the work, its date, its purpose, and the manuscript tradition. Extensive indexes are also provided, including an Index Verborum.

• Provides an improved text • Offers an alternative translation • Contains a comprehensive commentary on the work

Contents

Preface; Introduction: 1. Theophrastus and his times; 2. The nature and purpose of the Characters; 3. Date; 4. Transmission; 5. Some texts and commentaries; Text and translation; Commentary; Abbreviations and bibliography; Indexes.

Review

' This is a masterly achievement in virtually all respects, and one whose great wealth of erudition will make it an invaluable source of reference for anyone seriously concerned with the private and public psychologies of life in classical Athens.' Hermathena

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• Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries
• Classical Literature