Lost in Alexandria
Which classical poets are currently read in Norway

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BIBSYS

Which of the ancient poets are still read or studied in Norway? To get some empirical information on this question I turned to Bibsys, which is the union catalogue of Norwegian academic and special libraries.

Table 1. Titles by Greek and Latin poets
published after 1945 and registered in BIBSYS

High rank

Middle rank

Low rank

More than 100 titles

  1. Virgil - 188
  2. Homer - 176
  3. Ovid - 165
  4. Horace - 118

Between 40 and 60 titles

  1. Lucretius - 58
  2. Pindar - 53
  3. Catullus - 50
  4. Propertius - 44

Between 20 and 30 titles

  1. Martial - 28
  2. Statius - 28
  3. Hesiod - 27
  4. Juvenal - 24
  5. Tibullus- 24
  6. Theocritus - 23
  7. Apollonius Rhodius - 20

Between 10 and 19 titles

  1. Callimachus - 18
  2. Lucan - 17
  3. Sappho - 15
  4. Persius - 13
  5. Archilochos - 11
  6. Aratus - 10
  7. Lucilius - 10
  8. Phaedrus - 10

Betwen 5 and 9 titles

  1. Theognis - 9
  2. Alcaeus - 8
  3. Herodas - 8
  4. Silius Italicus - 7
  5. Alcman - 6
  6. Corinna - 5
  7. Hipponax - 5
  8. Simonides - 5
  9. Stesichorus - 5
  10. Ennius - 5

Less than 5 titles

  1. Ibycus - 4
  2. Bion - 4
  3. Moschus - 4
  4. Calpurnius Siculus - 3
  5. Babrius - 3
  6. Solon - 2
  7. Tyrtaeus - 2
  8. Nicander - 2
  9. Cercidas - 2
  10. Naevius - 2
  11. Manilius - 2
  12. Valerius Flaccus - 2
  13. Callinus - 1
  14. Asclepiades  - 1
  15. Terpander - 1
  16. Timocreon - 1
  17. Pacuvius - 1
  18. Sulpicia - 1
  19. Cinna - 1
  20. Laevius - 1
Greek authors are indicated by boldface. I started with a (relatively complete) list of (surviving) Greek and Latin poets from Homer till 250 AD. On July 2 and 3, 2003, I checked the number of titles in BIBSYS that had been published since 1945, with one of these registered as the author. Note that I have not included the dramatists: Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, ...

Comment

The first four on the ranking list - Vergil, Homer, Ovid and Horace - contribute more than half the titles. Additionally, the number of titles underestimate their position. Many titles are bought in several copies. Near the top the number of copies per title is generally bigger than further down on the list. Some examples:

  • Virgil - 2,6 copies per title (20 most recent titles)
  • Lucretius - 2,1
  • Martial - 1,35
  • Callimachus - 1,67 (based on 18 titles)
  • Theognis - 1,2 (based on 9)

Some other classical authors in BIBSYS (July 4)

  • Dante - 276
  • Kafka - 245
  • Proust - 211
  • Cervantes - 161
  • Melville - 137

Oslo public library

BIBSYS registers the titles that are bought by academic and special libraries. They reflect scholarly demand. We can not use the numbers as an indication of public interest. To get some idea of what the public reads, I took the authors of high and middle rank in BIBSYS and checked the catalogue of Oslo Public Library.

Table 2. Titles by Greek and Latin poets
published after 1945 and registered in Oslo Public Library

High rank

Middle rank

Low rank

More than 50 titles

  1. Homer - 56

Between 10 and 19 titles

  1. Vergil - 16
  2. Ovid - 13

Between 4 and 9 titles

  1. Horace - 6
  2. Lucretius - 5
  3. Sappho - 5
  4. Catullus - 4

One or 2 titles

  1. Tibullus - 2
  2. Propertius - 2
  3. Martial - 2
  4. Juvenal - 2
  5. Hesiod - 1
  6. Archilochos - 1*
  7. Pindar - 1
  8. Phaedrus - 1

No recent titles (1945-)

  1. Theokritos - 3 older
  2. Persius - 2
  3. Lucan - 2
  4. Kallimachos - 1
  5. Aratus - 1

No titles at all

  1. Apollonius
  2. Lucilius
  3. Statius
Greek authors in boldface. I started with a list of 23 Greek and Latin poets from Homer till 250 AD that were registered with at least 10 titles in BIBSYS, the Norwegian union catalogue for academic and special libraries (see Table 1). Note that the dramatists had been excluded from the survey. I then checked the number of titles in the Oslo Public Library catalogue Bibliofil.

Comment

The four top ranking authors were the same. But interestingly, the Iliad and the Odyssey are far more popular than the works of Vergil. Homer tells a better story.

The relatively high rank of Sappho is also notable. Only a few of her poems survive, but in the Greek- and Roman - literary canon she is the only woman that ranks with the great men.

The numbers, we repeat, refer to separate titles. Many titles are in fact available in a substantial number of copies. In the OPL library system (Bibliofil), we can also see if books are out on loan, reserved or on the shelf. We can therefore trace use or nonuse in some detail.

To take an example: the single title by the early Greek poet Archilocos was a Norwegian translation published in 1993. The library has 9 copies - probably received for free through a government distribution scheme that includes translations. All were on the shelf, except for one copy - at Bredtvedt women`s prison.

Tord Høivik - 2003/07/07