The book is new and still sealed. For everyone studying Aristotle's Poetics this book is not to be missed. Original newprice 165 euro's. Rare

From Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

We gain two great benefits from this new editio maior of Aristotle’s Poetics : a careful working- through and discussion of the Arabic witness to the text, and, consequently, an excellent apparatus criticus. The Greek text itself is good and the detailed textual discussions are of lasting value. The text they edit against, if you will, is Kassel’s OCT, which, Tarán argues, fails on three counts: it does not provide an adequate apparatus, holds too closely to the text of A, and does not take sufficient account of the Arabic. Tkatsch’s edition with commentary was also deeply flawed. Tarán and Gutas have collaborated to remedy these deficiencies.

The Poetics, more than any other work of Aristotle, has been the object of numerous editorial strategies. Tarán is fairly conservative. He completely rejects, for example, the transpositions of de Montmollin and Else, based as they were on elaborate hypotheses about the composition and revision of the text, and he tends to be sparing with emendations. The text may not be satisfactory to everyone, but even more liberal critics will value it as a clear and well-supported statement of what the archetype contained. The apparatus is the most detailed ever published.

The book is divided into an introduction, the text, and two textual commentaries. The first section of the introduction is Tarán’s “History of the Text of the Poetics.” He is as full as possible on the history of the text from Aristotle through the 19 th century, and casts doubt on the idea that Aristotle’s works were unavailable in the Hellenistic era, by argument from probability rather than by doctrine as Sandbach does.3 Most of the history of the editorial work is handled here. Tarán rightly criticizes the unmethodical textual work of earlier scholars and traces how some misunderstandings or unwarranted assumptions have wreaked havoc with the text and its interpretation.

The second section of the introduction is Gutas’ “The Poetics in Syriac and Arabic Transmission,” which is very enlightening for a classicist. He collects all of the Syriac and Arabic testimonia to the Poetics and writes a detailed history of the text. According to Gutas, the first translation into Syriac was in the ninth century and was revised. Abū-Bišr Mattā ibn-Yūnus translated this revised Syriac version into Arabic. Finally, Avicenna indicates that the Arabic translation was itself revised twice. There are some additional quotations of it in Averroes, who quotes liberally, probably from the first revision, and is therefore occasionally useful. The second, more thoroughgoing revision of Abū-Bišr’s version implies the use of a second Greek MS. On these grounds, Gutas posits a MS Σ, the basis for the original Syriac translation, as well as Ψ, the MS used for the second revision of the Arabic. The stemma on page 110 reveals a world of Near Eastern interest in Aristotle which most, I think, would not suspect existed. Unfortunately, only one MS (Parisinus Arabus 2346) of the original Arabic translation, sloppily copied and damaged, exists.

Gutas provides a history of the scholarship on the Arabic text and discussions of previous publications of the Arabic. His comments on the Greek text show the gains from his reflection on the Arabic and point out the difficulties of using the Arabic translation, but also the possibilities; examples of misuse of the Latin translations provided by Margoliouth and Tkatsch are informative of the difficulties. In spite of all that, he manages to elicit a great deal of information relevant for the editing of the Greek text. In place of the three sigla (Σ, [Syr], [Ar]) in Kassel’s edition for the Syro-Arabic tradition, there are now five sources of text (Σ, [Syr], [Ar], Ψ, Σ q) plus a much more subtle and detailed understanding of the “behind-the-scenes” of the Arabic MS, which bears fruit in his “Greco- Arabic Critical Apparatus and Commentary.”

Tarán’s “Prolegomena to the Edition of the Text” makes up the third part of the introduction. The MSS used are the same as in Kassel’s edition; nevertheless, their selection is put on a more rigorous basis. Tarán also provides the evidence for his assertions about the MSS, including A, which is the oldest MS of the text extant and must on those grounds be a primary MS. The MSS are given very full descriptions and histories.

In sum, this is a valuable tool for those working on the Poetics and should become the edition of reference. Gutas’ treatment of the Arabic text and Tarán’s work on the MSS are exemplary.