Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek

by James Morwood

This is the first dedicated grammar of Classical Greek for students for almost a century. It provides clarity, helpfulness, and ease of use for GCSE and A level students, as well as anyone with an interest in Ancient Greek. Generous help with grammatical terms, pronunciation, and difficult idioms is provided. Practice exercises, example sentences, and helpful tips throughout make the book a helpful study companion.

Genres: Reference, Language, Classics, Nonfiction, Linguistics

270 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2001

About the author

James Henry Weldon Morwood was an English classicist and author. He taught at Harrow School, where he was Head of Classics, and at Oxford University, where he was a Fellow of Wadham College, and also Dean. He wrote almost thirty books, ranging from biography to translations and academic studies of Classical literature.
His best-known work is The Oxford Latin Course (1987–92, with Maurice Balme, new ed, 2012), whose popularity in the USA led to the publication of a specifically American edition in 1996. Morwood is credited with helping to ensure the survival - even flourishing - of Classical education into the twenty-first century, both in the UK and the USA.

Reviews

[max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Designed for beginning or intermediate students, the chief virtue of this little book is that it dispenses with a great deal of the highly technical linguistic information that is often found in more traditional Greek grammars. It is paperbound, compact, and easy to use. The tables of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and prepositions are nicely laid out. The two separate lists of irregular verbs and their principal parts (182 in total) are also very helpful and well presented.

In the "Reference Grammar" there are short, helpful clauses or sentences from Greek authors which illustrate the point discussed. These are translated, which is especially useful. In the section entitled "Constructions," there are also crisp explanations of major grammatical points as well as short example sentences in Greek with accompanying translations. However, the "practice sentences" for translation out of or into Greek at the end of each section do not have an answer key at the end of the book, which would be a nice addition.

This much is clear: this book will not supersede or replace other available grammars, including Goodwin, Kaegi, and Smyth. In the end, the serious student must have a collection of grammars, since the nature of Greek studies is such that all available treatises must be consulted constantly to reach a deeper understanding of the finer points of the language.

[Donald Hartley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise, informative, and practical. Nicely done. It also serves its purpose as a helpful reference tool.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reference grammar for long-term use this is not. I used this in the early millennium as an undergraduate and had fond memories of it. It turns out that this was because my own undergraduate reading contained only the same easy Attic-Ionic and New Testament prose selections (with a sampling of Homer) as the audience Morwood was writing for; the description does, after all, refer to A-levels and GCSE students. When later in life I decided to finally tackle drama and poetry, the limitations of this book were immediately clear: there is no mention of the Doric dialect widely used in such literature!

This book is useful enough for looking up principal parts of irregular verbs, use of prepositions and case agreement, and sequence of tenses. But as someone who wants to do more with Greek than an introductory-level course, it turns out that investing in one of the hefty old-school reference grammars is a must.