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Research Strategies for Classics Majors : A Tutorial

Section III: Primary Texts

So far we have focused on secondary sources. For primary texts (i.e., works by Aristotle) you need to search the philosopher as "author" and the individual work as "title." You can combine an author and title search by using keywords and Boolean logic, e.g., “Aristotle AND Politics” (OR politic? to capture the adjective as well). This yields several entries listing various editions and translations, some with commentaries. For example, the Greek text with a parallel English translation in the set of volumes of the Loeb Classical Library located both in Classics Reference and Classics Stacks and in a searchable version online.

Other edited texts can be found in the Oxford Classical Texts and Bibliotheca Teubneriana.

Keep in mind that all philological studies MUST begin with the ancient text, and not with modern studies unless your research is specifically to examine a modern author's argument or the history of classical scholarship.    . 

To view and listen to a video-recorded step-by-step Search in the LCL, click on the right-pointing arrow in the image below.

 

  • Politics is found in vol. 44 (Loeb Classical Library);
  • the Greek text with an apparatus criticus in the Oxford Classical Texts (Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis) v. 15 in and v. 7;
  • the Greek text with an apparatus criticus in the Teubner texts (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana) v. 23;
  • the Greek text with a parallel French translation and an apparatus criticus in the Budé (Collection des Universités de France: l'Association Guillaume Budé) v. 74.

You can also perform a search by line and section beginning at 1339a (Book 8) of Politics in the Perseus Digital Library.

You can choose either the Greek text or its English translation.

Note: To describe and understand more fully Aristotle's theories on music in tragedy, you may need to go beyond "Politics" and consult Aristotle's entire corpus, especially "Poetics" (for his discussions on tragedy); "Metaphysics" and "On the Heavens (De caelo)" on his theories on numbers (Pythagorean number theory); "On the Soul (De anima)" on harmonics and music theory; "Ethics" on ethical behavior and education, etc.

To search terms and concepts in the entire corpus simultaneously, use the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

Examples of Greek search terms for our purpose may include:

To capture declined, conjugated, derived, or dialectical forms of the words/phrases, use the wildcard function in the proximity text search option.

Note: The editions used in the TLG are not always the best. Make sure to consult other editions as well, especially Teubner, including its commentaries (scholia) for possible variant readings.  

To view and listen to a video-recorded step-by-step Search in the TLG, click on the right-pointing arrow in the image below.

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