Canon Tags and Categories
The following tags are used to classify works in the TLG Canon. The descriptions reproduce the longer classifications provided in the Berkowitz & Squitier Canon (Oxford University Press, 1990).
Tags used to classify works
A–B
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| Anthol. | is used to classify postclassical collections such as the Anthologia Graeca (7000 001), Doctrina Patrum (7051 001), Florilegium Cyrillianum (4147 001), and Stobaeus's Anthologium (2037 001) constructed in late antiquity or the Middle Ages from earlier disparate sources. |
| Apocalyp. | defines works that are essentially of a prophetic nature but with a focus clearly directed “towards the end of things and to the destiny of the world in general.” See also Prophet. |
| Apocryph. | is used to identify two kinds of works: (1) those that have come down to us as part of the Septuagint but were not part of the traditional Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Old Testament) and (2) those that are generally regarded by Christians as extracanonical in relation to the New Testament. See also Relig. |
| Apol. | is applied to works written in defense of the tenets of one religious system against those of another. It is also used of works written in justification of orthodox Christian faith and, implicitly or explicitly, in opposition to heretical beliefs. |
| Biogr. | indicates both biographical and autobiographical writings. See also Hagiogr. |
C–G
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| Caten. | is restricted to scholiastic comment upon biblical passages and lists of variae lectiones to a given catena on a biblical passage. See also Exeget. and Schol. |
| Comm. | See Caten., Exeget., and Schol. |
| Concil. | signifies a miscellany of writings including speeches, letters, rosters, and proceedings of ecumenical councils. |
| Dialog. | is reserved for literary pieces written in the form of a prose dialogue, e.g. the works of Plato. |
| Eccl. | refers to themes, concerns, and attitudes associated with the Christian church. See also Hist., Relig., and Theol. |
| Encom. | suggests tone and feeling rather than literary genre. See also Hymn. |
| Exeget. | distinguishes writings that interpret the texts of the Old and New Testaments from the numerous commentaries that focus upon secular literature, such as the Platonic and Aristotelian corpora or the philological commentaries of Porphyry. See also Caten. and Schol. |
| Gramm. | is used to tag those works explicitly entitled Ars grammatica or Fragmenta grammatica, as well as treatises on prosody, orthography, accentuation, parts of speech, and inflection. See also Lexicogr. and Rhet. |
H
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| Hagiogr. | is used to characterize works whose principal themes are the lives and acts of saints, martyrs, and heroic figures in Judaeo-Christian tradition. See also Biogr. and Nat. Fict. |
| Hexametr. | is used of poems (or, more frequently, fragments of poems) that do not immediately betray a generic affiliation with some species of poetry in terms of theme or tone. Hexametr. is also used in conjunction with other tags to clarify the specific poetic form of a work that belongs more properly to another (usually prose) genre. |
| Hist. | the tag Hist. is affixed to the following categories of works: (1) extant whole works of the Greek historians; (2) fragments of otherwise lost historical works that may be collected in independent editions; (3) fragments of lost historical works that are edited as part of a generic collection such as FGrH, FHG, and HGM; and (4) works of ecclesiastical writers that focus upon the history of the church. See also Eccl., Myth., and Narr. Fict. |
| Homilet. | is used to distinguish homiliae (i.e., discourses on religious and moral topics delivered, or written as though they were intended for delivery, to a congregation) from orationes (i.e., discourses on secular topics delivered, or intended for delivery, on public occasions, including courtroom trials, legislative assemblies, and funerals). |
| Hymn. | regardless of meter, is assigned to the great variety of hymnal poetry ranging from the Hymni Homerici (0013 001-034) to the complex cantica of Romanus Melodus (2881 001-003, 005). See also Encom. |
| Hypoth. | defines the hypotheses transmitted (for the most part anonymously) as prefixes to Greek tragedies and comedies, as well as the numerous papyrological fragments containing hypotheses and didascaliae. |
L–P
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| Lexicogr. | characterizes not only the sort of lexicon that takes the form of a glossary or word-list with definitions but also the more extended form of lexicon that incorporates commentary, the literary-biographical-historical encyclopedia, the topically arranged thesaurus that includes vocabularies and lists of synonyms, and the several surviving Attic lexica. See also Gramm. and Schol. |
| Med. | is applied to a wide range of Greek medical writings without distinguishing between human and veterinary medicine. Also tagged as Med. are writings that deal with antidotes for wounds, bites, and stings, as well as the great many pharmacological prescriptions and formulae that pervade the medical literature. |
| Mus. | is used to classify not only theoretical works on music but also musical scales, musical and fragments of music. |
| Myth. | is used, in a fairly restrictive sense, to classify primarily the works of mythographers who produced compendia or interpretations of mythology and secondarily the works of historians (especially the early logographers) who cited myths as evidence in their historical accounts. See also Hist. |
| Narr. Fict. | is used to categorize a variety of novelistic writings that range from novel or romance to novella, story, tale, and vignette. |
| Nat. Hist. | encompasses a broad range of topics such as animal nature and animal behavior, hunting and fishing, horse-breeding and horse-training, colors, stones, plants, rivers, fire, winds, odors, meteorology, and agriculture. |
| Poem. | indicates metrical pieces that do not readily admit generic definition either by reason of meter or in terms of themes and tone. Also labeled Poem. are lines that appear to be rhythmical but that cannot otherwise be identified, as well as titles that are known, from ancient testimonia, to have signaled poetic content of an otherwise lost poem. |
| Prophet. | See Apocalyp. |
| Pseudepigr. | See Apocryph. |
R–T
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| Relig. | is used exclusively to designate texts that constitute the basis for the scripturae sacrae of Judaeo-Christian tradition. See also Apocryph. |
| Rhet. | is used to classify works concerned with the art, science, theories, and techniques of persuasion, of which oratory is the principal beneficiary. See also Gramm. and Homilet. |
| Schol. | is, for the most part, limited to works derived from the disjecta membra of otherwise lost commentaries on classical authors. |
| Theol. | is used to classify works that can be defined as religious literature insofar as they are concerned primarily with the nature of divinity, the relationship between human and divine, religious doctrine, and other spiritual matters. See also Eccl. and Relig. |
Source: Longer descriptions from the B&S Canon (Oxford University Press, 1990), as reproduced in the supplied TLG Canon Tags document.