The Pelican History of Greek Literature by Peter Levi (review)

Book Reviews249 psychoanalysis, and contemporary theories of critical analysis. Idiosyncratic in nature, Jardine will undoubtedly mystify the unwarned student with her esoteric references to French feminist thinking, psychoanalytical terminology, existential jargon, and profound philsophical concepts, much of which will require deep doses of prior reading and study. Yet, her acute perceptions of the problems with the word feminism within the confines of modernity in France and postmodernism in the United States are intelligently stated, and her desire to not only open up the discussion but to internationalize that concept is culturally valid. ALAIN D. RANWEZ Metropolitan State College PETER LEVI. The Pelican History of Greek Literature. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1985. 511 p. The publication of Peter Levi's book is well timed to meet a current revival of interest in ancient Greek poetry and prose. His purpose, "to record the writings of ancient Greeks, . . . to describe them, to offer short samples, and to show what the writers were like" (M), succeeds admirably. In twenty chapters Levi deals with writers from the archaic period to the Hellenistic, including Homer, Hesiod, early lyric poets, Pindar, the folk-song, the major dramatists, the historians, the great philosphers, the Hellenistic poets, and Plutarch. A concise up-to-date bibliography, occasionally with suggestions about which translations Levi recommends, follows each chapter. There are no notes, but Levi acknowledges that the book "depends massively on other people's work, but ... is never based on second-hand opinon" (11). Levi generally approaches each chapter in the following fashion: a summary of the scholarship of his topic, thus alerting the reader to the frequent shifts of opinion among generations of classicists; then selected passages from the works under discussion, always accompanied by Levi's knowledgeable appraisals. For example, in chapter 2, "Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns," he focuses upon the traditional view that Hesiod chronologically followed Homer and that together they illustrate a "moral and . . . theological evolution and social development" (48) experienced by the Greeks, a view now challenged by Martin West. Linguist Richard Janko and Levi himself leave the poems in the traditional order (48). The chapter continues with passages from Works and Days and from Birth of the Gods [Theogony]. Six pages devoted to the Homeric Hymns, principally The Hymn to Demeter, complete the chapter. Levi's work as classical scholar, archeologist, and poet well qualifies him for the task he sets for himself in his introduction. In his excellent chapter 3, "Early Lyric Poets," working from a "bewildering profusion of fragments" (66), he discusses eleven poets — Archilochos, Vallinos, Semonides, Mimnermos, Alkman, Stesichorus, Alkaios, Sappho, Solon (who wrote poems as well as political speeches), lbykos, and Anakreon — in easily located sections, but throughout the thirty-page chapter he also acquaints the reader with the wide variety of meters, stanza structures, musical instruments, images, and subjects adopted by the Greek poets. Levi is equally enlightening in his discussion of prose writers. Chapter 11, "Herodotos," is not a straightforward summary of the historian's work, but an exploration of historic episodes, possible sources available to Herodotos, his personality and lifestyle, dialect study, and analysis of Herodotos' literary style. 250Rocky Mountain Review "Refreshed, satisfied, and excited" by his reading of Plato, Levi eschews tracing the "precise arguments and shifting positions of every dialogue" (329, 330). Instead he enthusiastically dissects and answers modern charges against Plato, with generous acknowledgement of the work of Solsem {Plato's Theology 1941) and Dodds (commentary on the Gorgias 1959), at the same time dismissing much of Friedlander's work (Plato 1958-69). By putting Plato back into his historical context, Levi expects to arrive at a better understanding of the dialogues. Levi's lively discussion is seasoned with his admiration of Plato: "No Greek writer ever wrote a book as close as Plato's to the living word . . . ¡His writings] are meant tobe inspiring and life-giving" (352). In addition to facts and scholarship, Levi also gives the reader his own confident, entertaining, and witty style. "Xenophon," Levi notes, "knows some things about Sokrates one is pleased to hear, but one is never quite certain whether he exaggerated or from time to time invents" (319). More seriously, Levi keeps firmly in mind the...