Oxford Classical Texts (OCTs), or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. It contains texts of ancient Greek and Latin literature, such as Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid, in the original language with a critical apparatus. Works of science and mathematics, such as Euclid's Elements, are generally not represented. Since the books are meant primarily for serious students of the classics, the prefaces and notes have traditionally been in Latin (so that the books are written in the classical languages from the title page to the index), and no translations or explanatory notes are included. Several recent volumes, beginning with Lloyd-Jones and Wilson's 1990 edition of Sophocles, have broken with tradition and feature introductions written in English (though the critical apparatus is still in Latin).
Oxoniensis is an abbreviation used to denote mainly a single volume of the series (fully: editio Oxoniensis), rarely the whole collection; correspondingly, Teubneriana is used with reference to the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, a series with the same aim as the OCTs. Those who want some help in reading the classics may prefer the Loeb Classical Library, which includes English translations, or the Collection Budé, which includes French translations. In Spanish, the scholars recommend Library Gredos, Spain-based publisher.
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, classical and/or texts:
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)
“Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (17491832)
“A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present timethis one, for instanceas it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (18991986)