Laudator Temporis Acti

Marsh McCall, review of J. Diggle, Euripidea: Collected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), in Journal of Hellenic Studies 122 (2002) 163-164 (at 164):

Finally, a few comments on D.'s participation in the 'discourse' of textual criticism. No field in Classics boasts practitioners who are more scathing toward one another than textual critics. D. joined this fraternity of dubious virtue right from the start, and few scholars whom he has confronted have emerged inviolate. Of Dodds on Ba. 68-70: 'Evasiveness will not content us...' (3). On Verrall's assumption of an anacoluthon at Ion 1130-1: 'That such a grotesque interpretation, ruinous alike of style, syntax, and sense, should have been adopted by Murray in his verse translation is of small moment; that it should have been approved by Wilamowitz is truly alarming' (21). On Méridier's comment on Cycl. 398-9: 'That this interpretation is linguistically possible I shall not dispute; I shall contend only that it is effected by a construction of a flaccidity which is all but intolerable' (41). In the 1980s and 1990s, D. eases up a good deal, perhaps as he realized the responsibilities of preeminence, and he expresses full respect for at least some of his co-workers, Mastronarde and Matthiessen among them.

There is too often an arbitrary dismissiveness in the pronouncements of even the most distinguished textual critics, from which D. is not immune. What authorizes a critic to say, in discussing a hard passage, such as Supp. 468 (p.67): 'I shall ignore the conjectures which have been offered in place of βραχιόνων', without giving at least some indication why such an absolute dictum is merited? Or (286) in discussing κῶλον as part of a comprehensive analysis of Med. 1181-2: 'The proposed emendations are worthless and I shall not catalogue them'? And so on. A fine textual critic, it seems, simply must have the frame of mind that he knows language and metre better than anyone else and that sometimes a proclamation is all that is required.