00603 - Latin Language and Literature

Learning outcomes

This course seeks to provide the skills to understand Latin and the Literature of Rome through the direct analysis of Latin texts and documents. By the end of the course, students will acquire the tools to read a text and set it in its historical and cultural context.

Course contents

I. SPECIAL FOCUS COURSE. Images from Troy: the Iliad and Augustan poetry

The course seeks to analyse a number of literary rewritings of Homer in the Augustan literature, with a focus on ekphrasis and elegiac transcodification.

Texts: analysis (of the Latin text and/or the translation) of:
Virgil Aeneid 1 and 2 (selection)
Ovid Heroides 3

Critical literature: the analysis of the texts is complemented by the reading of a number of critical essays.

 

II. CORE COURSE
- Authors: students are required to read (in translation) the whole of Book 1 and 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid.
- Latin language (morphology and syntax).
- Latin literature (history of Latin literature).

As for Literary History, students are required to study the history of Latin Literature, in particular, a biographical and stylistic profile of the following authors: Augustine, Apuleius, Catullus, Caesar, Cicero, Cornelius Nepo, Ennius, Juvenal, Historia Augusta, Horace, Jerome, Livy, Livius Andronicus, Lucan, Lucilius, Lucretius, Martial, Naevius, Ovid, Petronius, Plautus, Pliny the Elder, Propertius, Quintilian, Sallust, Seneca, Suetonius, Tacitus, Terence, Varro, Virgil.

Readings/Bibliography

I. SPECIAL FOCUS COURSE
Texts:
Virgil: Virgilio, Eneide, introduzione di A. La Penna, traduzione e note di R. Scarcia, Milano, Rizzoli 2002; or Virgilio, Eneide, traduzione di M. Ramous, introduzione di G.B. Conte, commento di G. Baldo, Venezia, Marsilio, 1998;
Ovid: Ovidio, Metamorfosi, a cura di N. Scivoletto, Torino, Utet (Classici latini) 2013; or Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. VI, a cura di P. Hardie, traduzione di G. Chiarini, Milano, Mondadori (Fondazione Valla), 2015

Critical literature:
Virgil: A. Barchiesi, Virgilian Narrative: ecphrasis, in C. Martindale (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1997, 271-281;
R. Heinze, La tecnica epica di Virgilio, Bologna,1996, pp. 1-180

Ovid: A. Barchiesi, Narratività e convenzione, in P. Ovidii Nasonis Epistulae Heroidum 1-3, Firenze 1992, 15-41 .

II. CORE COURSE
Language: to read the Latin texts a good knowledge of Latin phonology, accidence and syntax is required. Suggested readings: Wheelock’s Latin by Frederic M. Wheelock and Richard A. Lafleur, Collins, New York 2005; Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges. Founded on Comparative Grammar by Joseph Henry Allen; James Bradstreet Greenough, Boston-London, Ginn & Co., 1904. Alternatively: I. Dionigi, E. Riganti, L. Morisi, Il latino, Bari, Laterza 2011. Further readings: A.Traina - G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino universitario, Pàtron, Bologna 1998⁶.

Latin literature: G.B. Conte, Letteratura latina. Manuale storico dalle origini alla fine dell'impero romano, Firenze: Le Monnier, 2002 [English translation: G.B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History, Baltimore, The John Hopkins UP, 1994].

Teaching methods

Lectures in class, supplemented by moments of interactive teaching and seminaries.

Assessment methods

The examination consists of a viva voce exam. Students are tested on:
- their knowledge of Latin phonetics, morphology, syntax through the reading and translation of the Latin texts (see section I)
- their ability of reading and translating the analysed Latin texts
- their knowledge of Literary History
- their ability of setting in a historical and cultural context the texts analysed in class
- their ability to discuss the chosen critical readings 

The assessment criteria is thus explained:
failing grades: lack of basic linguistic knowledge and inability to produce a correct translation and interpretation of the text. Lack of knowledge of Latin literature
passing grades: language proficiency at an intermediate level; translation and literary interpretation of the texts are mostly correct, but inaccurate and lacking in autonomy
excellent grades: language proficiency at an upper-mid level; translation and interpretation of the texts are not only correct, but carried out with autonomy and precision. Good knowledge of Latin prosody and metrics.

Teaching tools

Teaching is supplemented by a seminar on Latin Morphology and Syntax (ab initio), in the first semester (from 5 October 2017).

Most texts analysed in class and further papers will be available in ‘Teaching Material’.

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Ziosi