The Historical Present in Thucydides, Semantics and Narrative Function ─ Le present historique chez Thucydide, Semantique et fonction narrative

Classicists from across Europe, and one from the US, explore how Greek historian Thucydides (460-400 BC) occasionally used the present indicative tense, rather than the usual imperfect and aorist, to mark events that the he considered crucial, or decisive for the development of the plot. Such use of the tense is called historical present, or narrative present, to show that it does not indicate actual time. Five of the nine essays are in French. The English discussions are capturing the case of airei and lambanei, linguistic and the persuasive function of the historical present in two battle scenes, the profanation of the mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermae, and the temporal characteristics of the historical present in Thucydides. Readers are assumed to read French, German, and ancient Greek as well as English. Only passages in Thucydides and technical terms are indexed. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jean Lallot (agrege de grammaire 1962, PhD 1990) est maitre de conferences emerite (linguistique grecque) a l’Ecole normale superieure (Paris). Commentateur et traducteur d’Aristote (Poetique, 1980 [en collab.]; Categories, 2002 [en collab.]) et des grammairiens grecs (Denys le Thrace, 1989; Apollonius Dyscole, Syntaxe, 1997).Albert Rijksbaron (Ph.D. 1976) is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Greek Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam. His publications include The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek (1984, 20023), Grammatical Observations on Euripides’ Bacchae (1991), and an edition with commentary of Plato’s Ion (2007).Bernard Jacquinod (docteur d’etat 1985) est professeur emerite de Linguistique du grec ancien a l’Universite de Saint-Etienne (France), il a ete le directeur de la faculte d'Arts, Lettres, Langues. Il a publie sa these sous le titre : Le double accusatif en grec d’Homere a la fin du Ve avant J.-C. (1989, Louvain). Michel Buijs, Ph.D. (2003) in Ancient Greek, Leiden University, teaches Greek and Latin at Utrecht University and Leiden University. He is author of Clause Combining in Ancient Greek Narrative Discourse (2005) and co-editor of The Language of Literature. Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts (2007).