I’ve just received my copies of Bruno Snell’s Griechische Metrik and Dietmar Korzeniewski’s Griechische Metrik. Yes, they have the same title, but they are not quite the same in content. Korzeniewski’s book, though less well-known, is (I think) more highly regarded and fuller in its presentation.
These books came to me very cheaply (somewhere in the neighborhood of $16), the pristine cast-offs of a university library that probably needed to make room for a new computer that will be obsolete tomorrow.
To get a sense of the value of these books consider this not-so-glowing review of T.G. Rosenmeyer’s portion of the much-over-valued ‘handbook’ by Halporn, Ostwald, and Rosenmeyer:
The main trouble with this and nearly every introduction to Greek meter is that metrics is not a science: it is a battleground of jarring sects. The most that a handbook writer can perform is a lucid introduction to the opinio communis, with just enough notes and bibliography to allow the student to enter the fray, if he has a mind to. Excellent examples are Korzeniewski’s Griechische Metrik or Rossi’s article in the Kleine Pauly. The author of this handbook, however, has contented himself with a paraphrase of Snell’s Griechische Metrik, somewhat modified by the late A.M. Dale’s lucubrations on lyric meters. No mention is made of rival theories and schools, but—what is worse—metrics and meter are nowhere defined.
—Thomas Fleming, CJ 78.1, pp. 71–2
There’s more after that, and some of it very damning, but I was more interested in the praise offered to Korzeniewski. I’m beginning to realize how much West’s treatment of meter has depended on this work.
Hans A. Pohlsander (CW 63.5, pp. 18-9), at any rate, disputed that this was an introduction and advised rather that ‘Advanced students of Greek metrics, on the other hand, will find this study useful.’
I’m looking forward to digging in.