Talk:Theognis of Megara

Language

The language in several portions of this article is nonacademic and hardly neutral. It sounds as if the author is trying to sound more like a poet than a Wikipedia contributor. WildePan (talk) 17:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The issue here is that this is (largely) Thomas Hudson-Williams' article from the 1911 Britannica. As the world's leading expert when he wrote the article (he had just published his still-consulted commentary in 1910), he could pronounce authoritatively in a way that wouldn't be fitting for the Wikipedia editor. One problem with simply stripping such judgments out of the article is that they often reflect important and notable citable views, ancient and modern. No doubt the article could be strengthened by citations, but the 1911 tag at the bottom is probably the (minimally acceptable) authority for what you find objectionable. It would be helpful if you could list here (or via inline tags) what you really think needs to be fixed. But the sad reality is that the article could be improved by incorporating more of Hudson-Williams' original article, which may well have fallen away because of such complaints. (I hope it goes without saying that the article could be better still by being written from scratch from scholarly sources of recent decades, but that would be a big job.) At the Lysias article (another 1911 gem by Richard Jebb), I found I had to re-add deleted text with the ancient references (e.g. someone had taken out stylistic comparisons with other orators as subjective, but these were important and well-established ancient views for which one could cite ancient and modern literary critics). If people correctly understand the nature of the 1911 article, though, they will provisionally leave such matter in, as it has pretty good authority. Wareh (talk) 15:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

new edit

The article at present includes the following 'heroic' couplets and comments (in italics):

We struggle onward, ignorant and blind,

For a result unknown and undesign’d;

Avoiding seeming ills, misunderstood,

Embracing evil as a seeming good.

Fragment LVIII (above) in particular provided some basis for the etymological theory mounted in On the Genealogy of Morality.ref>For further discussion, see James Porter, Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future, Stanford University Press, 2000.</ref

It's feisty English verse, punching with a good left-right combination, but I don't know the poet, I don't know which lines of Theognis it paraphrases, and it doesn't reflect the elegiac form that Theognis used. I'm thinking of retaining it but in a Notes section. Advice/suggestions? McZeus (talk) 02:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Also the current edit includes the following passage with lots of goodies in it but without any sources being cited. I'd like to keep some of it but first the sources have to be provided, otherwise out it all goes.

The collection of verse attributed to Theognis (called the Theognidea) contains several poems acknowledged to have been composed by Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus and Solon; with two exceptions (T.W. Allen in Classical Review, Nov. 1905, and E. Harrison); modern critics unanimously regard these elegies as intruders, that is, not admitted into his works by Theognis himself; for this and other reasons they assume the existence of further interpolations which we can no longer safely detect. Generations of students have exhausted their ingenuity in vain efforts to sift the true from the false and to account for the origin and date of the Theognidea as we possess them; the question is fully discussed in the works of Harrison and Hudson-Williams.

Whether, with Harrison, we hold that Theognis wrote "all or nearly all the poems which are extant under his name" or follow the most ruthless of the higher critics (Sitzler) in rejecting all but 330 lines, there is abundant and unmistakable evidence to show what Theognis himself existed. However much extraneous matter may have wormed its way into the collection, he still remains the one main personality, and stands clearly before us, a living soul, quivering with passion and burning with political hate, the very embodiment of the faction-spirit (stasis) and all it implied in the tense city-state life of the ancient Greek.

There is neither profound thought nor sublime poetry in the work of Theognis; but it is full of sound common sense embodied in exquisitely simple, concise and well-balanced verse. As York Powell said, "Theognis was a great and wise man. He was an able exponent of that intensely practical wisdom which we associate with the 'Seven Sages of Greece.'" Had he lived a century later, he would probably have published his thoughts in prose; in his day verse was the recognized vehicle for political and ethical discussion, and the gnomic poets were in many ways the precursors of the philosophers and the sophists, who indeed often made their discourse turn on points raised by Theognis and his fellow-moralists. No treatment of the much-debated question "Can virtue be taught?" was regarded as complete without a reference to Theognis 35-36, which appears in Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus and Clement of Alexandria, who compares it with Psalm 18.

Besides the elegies to Cyrnus, the Theognidea comprise many maxims, laments on the degeneracy of the age and the woes of poverty, personal admonitions and challenges, invocations of the gods, songs for convivial gatherings and much else that may well have come from Theognis himself. The second section ("Musa Paedica") deals with the love of boys, and, with the exceptions already noted, scholars are at one in rejecting its claim to authenticity. Although some critics assign many elegies to a very late date, a careful examination of the language, vocabulary, versification and general trend of thought has convinced the author of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article that practically the whole collection was composed before the Hellenistic period.

I'll store it here for later rescue, if that can be managed. McZeus (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

As the language should make clear, this is the 1911 Britannica article, lightly massaged. As Wareh remarks above, this is itself a reliable (and effectively secondary) source; since it is out of copyright, it can be restored, although updating would be desirable. There is a {{1911}} tag precisely for such articles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. However, I don't think we should be referencing another encyclopaedia, especially since it is already online. There are comments in the given passage that should be able to be sourced elsewhere. I like the swing of this comment in particular and it looks as if it must be repeated from somewhere else: "No treatment of the much-debated question "Can virtue be taught?" was regarded as complete without a reference to Theognis 35-36, which appears in Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus and Clement of Alexandria, who compares it with Psalm 18." It probably belongs in a new section in the article, something on the theme of the ancient reception of the poems. McZeus (talk) 22:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Nietzsche

I reverted to an edit advising the reader that Theognis is mentioned by Nietzsche in a 'controversial' passage in On the Geneology of Morals. Another editor deleted it on the grounds that the passage generally has no relevance to Theognis. I disagree. Theognis advocated a kind of eugenics in several of his fragments and the Nietzsche passage clearly points in that direction, whether his comments are to be taken literally or figuratively. I think Darwin also quoted Theognis in one of his works. The Nietzsche passage is very small and it seems unlikely to me that it's controversial nature is irrelevant to an article on Theognis. McCronion (talk) 03:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I have responded to the other editors objection with the addition of some sources providing caveats and also with inclusion info about Charles Darwin, with this edit McCronion (talk) 05:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)