This bibliographical essay is divided into six parts, which supersede an older set of six essays that had once served as introductions to a collection of writings on ancient Greek literature: the first six of nine volumes in G. Nagy, ed. 2001. Greek Literature (New York: Routledge). For an updating of those earlier essays, see Nagy 2001 (cited under Oral Traditional Background of Ancient Greek Poetry). This essay concentrates on books and articles that primarily evaluate and interpret the original texts of Greek poetry before the Hellenistic period, not on published commentaries, however valuable they may be, that accompany editions of these original texts. We make four exceptions, however, by listing Barrett’s Euripides: Hippolytus (Barrett 1964, cited under Drama of Euripides), Seaford’s Euripides: Cyclops (Seaford 1984, cited under Relationship of Ritual and Myth in Drama), Asheri and colleagues’ Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV (Asheri, et al. 2007, cited under Debates about Classical Greek Poetry as It Relates to Classical Greek Prose), and Bollack’s Empédocle (Bollack 1965–1969, cited under Greek Poetry and Philosophy in the Pre-Socratic Era): we highlight these four publications as masterpieces of interpretation, regardless of category.
Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature