Lexicon of the early Greek epic
The lexicon of the early Greek epic (LfgrE) is a lexicon for the early period of the text genre of the Greek epic , which was published by the Göttingen publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht . It deals with the epics Iliad and Odyssey by Homer as well as the works of the poet Hesiod and the Homeric hymns . The epic language stands on the border between oral and written language and is characterized by archaisms and a mixture of Greek dialects .
history
The project was started in Hamburg in 1944 by Bruno Snell as part of an overall project Archive for Greek Lexicography ( Thesaurus Linguae Graecae ). Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker acknowledged Snell's concern with this encyclopedia in a letter to Snell with the words: “ The lexical work you initiated on this epic thus philologically prepares the soil from which the whole tree of Western thought was nourished. "
The first delivery of the lexicon appeared in 1955. Hans Joachim Mette was editor of the project until the third delivery in 1959 ; Bruno Snell and Ulrich Fleischer were the editors . The fourth delivery in 1965 was provided by Gerda Knebel , deliveries 5 to 11 (1984) by Eva-Maria Voigt . From the letter Β (delivery 10, 1982) the project was taken over by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . This meant a significant streamlining of the work, especially on frequently occurring words and particles. From 1984 to 2010 the project was headed by Michael Meier-Brügger . The fourth and final volume was completed in 2010.
Employee
Most recently, nine research assistants worked on the project with the editor Michael Meier-Brügger. The project has always been a training center for aspiring scientists. The usual working time was two years. The employees included Klaus Alpers , Claude Calame , Thomas Gelzer , Jean Irigoin , Irene de Jong , Gerda Knebel , Joachim Latacz , Kjeld Matthiessen , Reinhold Merkelbach , Dieter Motzkus , Heinz Neitzel , Klaus Nickau , Stefan Radt , Walter Spoerri and Gerd Steiner .
The management committee of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, most recently composed of Dieter Harlfinger , Ernst Heitsch , Heinrich Hettrich , Klaus Nickau , Ulrich Schindel and Arbogast Schmitt (chairman), met once a year in Hamburg and since 1993 has organized a public lecture by a well-known epic researcher on this occasion . The speakers included Helmut van Thiel , Arbogast Schmitt, Tilman Krischer , Martin L. West , Wolfgang Kullmann and Ernst Heitsch.
financing
The project was originally financed from the means of the Archive for Greek Lexicography in Hamburg, which came from the Hamburg Scientific Foundation and the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen . In 1947 the archive was given a fixed annual budget as an institute. The funding requested by UNESCO in 1949 was approved in 1950. The German Research Foundation (DFG), at that time the emergency community of German science , also supported the project.
UNESCO soon withdrew its funding, while the DFG increased its support. An international collection of signatures in 1976 delayed the DFG's exit until 1980, when the project was taken over by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Until the end of 2010, the funds were provided by Hamburg supporters (including the Joachim Jungius Society ), the academy and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research .
literature
- Martin Schmidt : The scientific location of the LfgrE. Conference contribution from October 15, 2002. (online at: uni-hamburg.de ) (PDF; 38 kB)
- William Beck, Dieter Irmer : Fifty Years Thesaurus: 1944–1994. Hamburg 1996, DNB 952701928 .
- Michael Meier-Brügger (Ed.): Homer, interpreted by a large lexicon. Files from the Hamburg Colloquium from March 6th to 8th October 2010 at the end of the Lexicon of the Early Greek Epic . Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-028518-5 .