/lit/ - Literature

>>17874216
No, I actually hadn't heard of Mastronarde, but he looks good on first glance. I used the two-book Athenaze, which is basic but very well structured. Once you finish it, you're ready to dive into the literature. I started with the "Apology," which was a good introduction to some syntactical peculiarities of philosophical Greek. Then I read Euripides' "Helen" on a lark, and now just I read whatever.

Familiarity with Plato in your native language is helpful of course, as you can appreciate how he pushes against the boundaries of Greek to carve out a new philosophical language. My main object of study is currently the "Philebus," but I've read (at least) sections of almost all Plato's dialogues in Greek. [The "Cratylus" is especially important to read in Greek, for obvious reasons.] I found it a very easy language to learn, and I'm not great with foreign languages; it took me 1.5 years of academic (read: lazy) study to get to comfortable proficiency. You could easily compress that to a year if you're dedicated.

Pic related is a contemporary landmark reference once you're done with basic study, and want to get into the nitty-gritty of syntax, particles, etc. Also, I recommend the recent two-vol. Cambridge compilation of the Presocratics: https://www.amazon.com/Texts-Early-Greek-Philosophy-Presocratics/dp/0521608422 One, it has facing English and Greek; two, the fragments are often bite-sized and sometimes gnomic, which means that you get a high reward-to-effort ratio. It gave me an appreciation for Aristotle, whom I find largely inaccessible in English — he is brilliantly clear and precise in Greek. Holy hell, I might have to read Aristotle soon.