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| Diels–Kranz fragments | |
|---|---|
| Name | Diels–Kranz fragments |
| Author | Hermann Diels; revised by Walther Kranz |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Subject | Ancient Greek philosophy, Presocratic texts |
| Genre | Scholarly edition, text collection |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter |
| Pub date | 1903; revised editions 1953, 1964 |
Diels–Kranz fragments are the standard critical edition and collection of fragmentary texts from ancient Greek authors, especially Presocratic philosophers, assembled by Hermann Diels and later revised by Walther Kranz. The edition established a canonical ordering and numbering still used by scholars working on figures such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaximander, and Zeno of Elea. Its influence extends through research in institutions like the British Museum, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and universities such as University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Heidelberg University.
Diels–Kranz presents testimonia and fragments attributed to early Greek thinkers, poets, and historians including Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Democritus. The work distinguishes between direct quotations preserved in authors like Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, and indirect reports found in Diogenes Laërtius and Aelian. It became authoritative in the same scholarly milieu that produced editions by August Boeckh, translations associated with Heinrich Schliemann, and philological methods developed at the Gymnasium-centered classical faculties of the 19th century.
Diels compiled witnesses from a wide range of sources including papyri excavated near Oxyrhynchus and citations in authors such as Simplicius of Cilicia, Proclus, Cicero, Strabo, and Cassius Dio. Kranz revised Diels's arrangement and commentary, responding to debates involving editors like Friedrich Nietzsche (in his early philological phase), Wilhelm Dilthey, and textual critics in the tradition of Karl Lachmann. Editorial principles include distinguishing testimonia (reports about an author) from fragments (quotations), assessing variant readings preserved by Byzantine scribes and Latin translators like Boethius, and preferring manuscript evidence corroborated by papyrological finds from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Herculaneum materials.
The Diels–Kranz system assigns each author an "DK" number followed by a subdivision: testimonia (A), fragments (B), and testimonia of a different class (C) as later editors adapted. This schema parallels numbering conventions used in critical corpora such as Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and the Loeb Classical Library series; it also influenced numbering in the study of Sappho and the transmission of Aristophanes. The consistency of DK numbering facilitates cross-referencing among scholarship in journals like Classical Quarterly, Mnemosyne (journal), and publications by the Institute for Advanced Study and the American Academy in Rome.
Well-known fragments edited in the Diels–Kranz corpus include passages attributed to Heraclitus that survive in Plutarch and Stobaeus, testimonia about Pythagoras appearing in Porphyry and Iamblichus, and lines ascribed to Empedocles cited by Aristotle and Cicero. The recension contains the famous "On Nature" fragments often discussed alongside editions of Lucretius and commentaries by scholars at University of Berlin, École Normale Supérieure, and Harvard University. Conservation of variant readings allows comparison with scholia preserved in manuscripts held by institutions such as the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Library.
Diels–Kranz reshaped studies of early Greek thought, informing interpretive traditions in secondary literature by figures like Martin Heidegger, G. E. L. Owen, John Burnet, Kurt von Fritz, and Jonathan Barnes. It standardized citation practices adopted in monographs from presses such as Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, and influenced curricula at conservatories of classical studies in Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University. Debates over reconstruction, authenticity, and philosophical attribution—engaging scholars like E. R. Dodds and M. D. Usher—trace back to the ordering and critical choices made in Diels–Kranz.
Digitizations and digital critical editions have made DK material available through projects at Perseus Digital Library, Loeb Digital Library, and repositories run by De Gruyter and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. Recent scholarship integrates papyrology from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri project, manuscript digitization efforts at the Vatican Library and Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, and databases curated by research centers at University College London and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Modern annotated translations and commentaries appear in series edited by Cambridge University Press, Brill, and Hackett Publishing Company.
Category:Classical philology Category:Ancient Greek philosophy