An Homeric Dictionary for Use in Schools and Colleges

Abstract

The dialect of ancient Greek in which the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed and later written down is sufficiently different from classical Attic Greek that it has always proven a stumbling block for students. Perceiving the need for a concise dictionary of Homeric Greek forms, German scholar Georg Autenrieth (1833–1900) compiled this now famous work, first published in 1873 and translated into English by Robert P. Keep (1844–1904) in 1877. Keep, who taught Greek at Yale University and various New England colleges, recognised from his own experience that Autenrieth's book would enable students to proceed faster and further in their studies of Homer than could ever be the case using a conventional dictionary, where dialect forms received a relatively cursory treatment at the end of each entry. The worldwide success of the work, reissued here in its first English edition, has justified this belief.