Sunday, May 05, 2024
Prolix Commentaries
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 32.2 (1911) 230-242 (at 233):
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Theoretically, a classic is a ζῷον, not a clothes-horse, on which to hang syntactical analyses or archaeological disquisitions. Theoretically, every needless word in a commentary is an impertinence, but practically no commentator schools himself to such renunciation. Who would give up Lobeck's Ajax or for that matter Peter Burmann's Petronius?
