Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook (review)

Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook by Graham Anderson is a welcome if imperfect addition to Greenwood's Folklore Handbooks series. It introduces classicists and folklorists alike to the many ways that engagement with the folklore of the classical world can inform their scholarly pursuits. Criticizing those in both disciplines for having investigated ancient folklore "in a more or less piecemeal fashion" for well over a century (p. 21), Anderson provides a solid foundation of primary source material in translation, as well as a worthwhile bibliography of secondary sources relating to a wide spectrum of folklore and folk practice in Greco-Roman culture spanning over a millennium. By introducing the basic approaches of folklore scholarship and then applying them to classical cultural artifacts (predominantly texts), Anderson contextualizes classical material for folklorists and adduces suitable parallels from other cultures.

The book itself is organized into ten well-structured chapters. The first three guide the reader from the basic elements of folklore scholarship (including the difficult issue of definition), through an overview of the classical sources, and on to an exposition of the transmission of folklore in antiquity. The next six chapters serve as the heart of the work. Here, Anderson embarks upon systematic treatments of many topics: traditional forms (folktales, fairy tales, fables, etc.), folk wisdom, folk custom, medicine and magic, popular perception of the natural world, and the "personnel" of Greek and Roman folklore (e.g., nymphs and satyrs). The brief final chapter offers both a summary of what came before and Anderson's interesting personal reflection on the project as whole. A glossary of folklore-related terms, a bibliography conveniently arranged under specific headings, a handy listing of web resources, and a serviceable index add to the volume's overall utility.

Classicists will appreciate Anderson's broad coverage of literary genres and his carefully considered analyses of ancient material, which he approaches from a scholarly perspective largely still unfamiliar to them. Likewise, the book affords folklorists a conveniently arranged introduction to and representative sampling of pertinent primary sources in translation suitable for further investigation since, as Anderson rightly suggests, a background in classical languages and literatures is not often a part of the contemporary folklorist's training (pp. 21-2). Although the book's coverage of ancient material is necessarily selective (pp. 27, 189), Anderson succeeds for the most part in balancing as well as conjoining the needs of scholars in two disparate disciplines. This is perhaps best exemplified by his discussion of Adrienne Mayor's work on the role of fossil bones in the origins of classical myth (pp.165-8).

Unfortunately, the overall positive contribution made by the work is diminished by a number of deficiencies. The most obvious of these is that once Anderson begins the discussion of specific elements of classical folklore (chapters 4-9), his treatment presumes a reader's relative familiarity with the methodologies of classical scholarship, especially that of textual citation. As a result, appreciating the expansive richness of this material may be difficult for the folklore scholar with little prior background in classics. Without considerable effort by instructor and student alike, using the work in the folklore classroom may be a challenging proposition.

From a classicist's perspective, the absence of an Index Locorum (i.e., "Index of Passages," a sine qua non for secondary works in classics) limits the reader's ability to locate discussions of specific primary source materials within the body of the work. It is also unclear who has translated some of the ancient selections, and Anderson cites some translations and editions of texts long supplanted by more modern versions. He also fails to note several relevant primary sources that would provide additional information on important topics (e.g., Theophrastus's De lapidibus and Diocorides's De materia medica, the latter being critical for any discussion of ancient medicine). A number of minor—but nevertheless annoying—oversights will not measurably affect the work's usefulness for...