Wednesday, March 01, 2023
The Study of a Lifetime
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 27.1 (1906) 102-111 (at 110):
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Impressions have a certain interest. Epigrams may serve to amuse. But what does the specialist care for the judgment of these nimble wits? Read the originals, of course, rather than the commentators. But it is impossible to characterize an author aright without attacking the problems of genesis, the problems of genuineness. Homer alone is the study of a lifetime.Id. (at 111):
Allusions fifty years old are as dead as allusions two thousand years old. Dickens requires an annotator as much as Aristophanes.
