Appetitve/Reasoning: Great Getty Resources and the Problems with Publishing Classics Books

There are some really fabulous features attached to the Getty Villa exhibition The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. So even if you are not fortunate enough to go see the exhibit, you can experience some of the fabulous work put together there.

First, there is a slideshow with audio commentary which displays seventeen of the art pieces displayed. Check out the slideshow.

Second, they put up a reading of a fragment of a Sopholces satyr play called the trackers. As far as I can tell, the pronunciation is pretty good. However, my pronunciation and linguistic understanding is still not what it should be. If anyone has any thoughts, I would love to hear him. The audio can be found here.

Although I did not get to peruse them very thoroughly, there are three books that the Getty published in conjunction with exhibit. Two of them, The Pronomos Vase and It's Context and Pot's and Plays, are edited by Oliver Taplin. The Art of Ancient Greek Theater is edited by Mary Louise Hart.

Sadly, the books are all extraordinarily expensive. This, however, is not unexpected given the price of classics books in general. In a thesis meeting, I was told by Messalla, my fabulous thesis adviser, that classics textbooks were originally significantly cheaper (with adjustment for inflation). Publishers eventually realized that a large portion of the audience for these books was comprised of professors and libraries, most of whom had access to some portion of the University budget. As such, the publishers realized that they could increase their profit margin by making the books ridiculously expensive-- thereby cutting out the student and causal-reader market-- and sell the books significantly more expensively from smaller printings (which were more expensive per book to make). I do not have any specifics on the Getty as a publisher, but think that, in general, the expense trend with classics books is ridiculous. Although libraries are a great resource, with public funding decreasing everywhere, a lot of libraries are having trouble affording the same books that students cannot afford for themselves. Also, the rarer and more expensive the books are, the more likely they are to be stolen (a bunch of expensive classics books were stolen from my college last year) and then resold.

I do not believe there is any real way to break the trend of such expensive books. Some publishing houses obviously provide significantly better prices than others. And, of course, I would never want to deny money or publishing access to the scholars who produce the wonderful things that I read. I know this might sound a little hypocritical given my recent blogpost, but would it not be better if publishing houses just made books less expensive, rather than making them really expensive and then putting some portion of the scholarly collection up for free online (see the incredible CDL archive). I love ebooks and free books, but I would not search for them quite so hard if the books I needed were less expensive or appeared in more libraries.

Appetitive: A Reading of Ovid

I was looking for something online the other day, I cannot even remember what it was when I stumbled across the podcast of a Dickinson Classics Professor, Christopher Francese, who reads poems in Latin. I listened to my first one this morning and I thought that it was thoroughly enjoyable. I listened to "The Art of Love (Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.1-24)," Released: Jul 31, 2010. I can't link directly to the podcast, but it is the one called "The Art of Love" dated 07/30/10. He reads in his own translation and then reads in Latin:

"Siquis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi, Hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet. Arte citae lecto carmine doctus amet. Arte citae veloque rates remoque moventur, Arte leves currus: arte regendus amor. Curribus Automedon lentisque erat aptus habenis, Tiphys in Haemonia puppe magister erat: Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori; Tiphys et Automedon dicar Amoris ego. Ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe puppe magister erat: Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori; Tiphys et Automedon dicar Amoris ego. Ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe repugnet: Sed puer est, aetas mollis et apta regi. 10 Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem, Atque animos placida contudit arte feros. Qui totiens socios, totiens exterruit hostes, Creditur annosum pertimuisse senem. Quas Hector sensurus erat, poscente magistro erberibus iussas praebuit ille manus. Aeacidae Chiron, ego sumtotiens exterruit hostes, Creditur annosum pertimuisse senem. Quas Hector sensurus erat, poscente magistro Verberibus iussas praebuit ille manus. Aeacidae Chiron, ego sum praeceptor Amoris: Saevus uterque puer, natus uterque dea. Sed tamen et tauri cervix oneratur aratro, Frenaque magnanimi dente teruntur equi; Et mihi cedet Amor, quamvis mea vulneret arcu Pectora, iactatas excutiatque faces. Quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, Hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero" (Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.1-24) [1].

I have no idea about the accuracy of his pronunciation, but I enjoyed listening to it.

Pronunciation in both Greek and Latin is one of my greatest weaknesses. When i was originally learning the languages, I decided that other aspects were more important to me. I always loved listening to my friends speak in classical languages, but I never spent any time on developing my own ability. I did not realize how embarrassed of my lack of skill I was until this last year, when I was in a class where I had to read in Greek a lot more than I had bargained for. I enlisted the help of a Propertius, who rivals silver-tongued Hermes in pronunciation abilities, and after an hour of his patient help I realized what an arduous process learning pronunciation was going to be.

On his recommendation, I acquired a copy of Vox Graeca, but I have not gotten around to flipping through it. I read the preface and the Phonetic Introduction today, and it looks like it will be a lot of work. I have hopes that the process will pay off.

  

I was also excited to learn today that there was a Vox Latina. I do not know anything about it but I assume that it would provide a similar service. Does anyone know if it is any good?

Endnotes

1. I am not at all sure how to make the poem display in couplets (as one can easily guess from my problematic formatting on my translation of Sulpicia.