83248 - Latin Language and Literature 1 (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide students with basic knowledge about Latin language and literature. This goal will be reached with the help of direct analysis of texts and documents. At the end of the course, students will acquire the necessary skills to place a text into its historical and cultural context, and to interpret it with reference to material culture, mythology, and history of rituals and institutions. 

Course contents

Special focus course: Latin historiographic and ethnographic sources: Caesar, De bello Gallico, book VI; Cornelius Nepos, Atticus (= Life of Atticus)

Latin Language: notions of phonetics, morphology, vocabulary, syntax

Authors to be read in Latin: Sallustius, Bellum Iugurthinum (The War with Iugurtha), chapters 1-42, 78-79, 85-94, 98-104

Students who do not follow the curriculum LM 39 are requested to read, instead of the book included in the special focus course, books XXVIII, XXIX, and XXX from Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita

Non-attending students are requested to add following article to the program: Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, The Language of Latin Historiography, in: A Companion to the Latin Language, edited by James Clackson, Maiden (MA)-Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 408-425.

Readings/Bibliography

Special focus course:

Text: Caio Giulio Cesare, La guerra Gallica, introduzione e note di Ettore Barelli; traduzione di Fausto Brindesi, Milano, BUR, 2016; Cornelio Nepote, Opere, a cura di L. Agnes, Torino, UTET, 1977, p. 316-247

Readings: M. Manca - F. Rohr Vio, Introduzione alla storiografia romana, Roma, Carocci, 2010 (nuova edizione, ibid., 2019); Orizzonti culturali di Cornelio Nepote. Dal Po a Roma, ed. G. Bernardi Perini ed A. Cavarzere, Firenze, Olschki, 2013 (selected chapters, to be uploaded on IOL).

Core course:

I. Dionigi – E. Riganti – L. Morisi, Verba et res. Morfosintassi e lessico del latino, 2 voll., Bari, Laterza, 1999 ristampato con il titolo Il latino. Grammatica ed esercizi, Bari, Laterza, 2011; A. Traina – G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino universitario, Bologna, Pàtron, 1995, capp. I-VI

Authors:

Gaio Sallustio Crispo, La guerra di Giugurta, prefazione, traduzione e note di Lidia Storoni Mazzolani, Milano, BUR, 2013

Teaching methods

Classes are organized in form of lectures. During the seminars (optional), students will be required to discuss and interact, and to take part in some tests to verify their level of knowledge.

Part I of the course will be dealt with during classes; part II and III are placed under the responsibility of the students. However, part III will be the object of a special seminar to support the students.

 

Assessment methods

The exams consist in: a written test with multiple choices of answers, and computer assisted; an interview which will asses the students' skills in reading, translating, and interpreting the texts discussed during the course. 

Students should pass the written test before the oral exam.

The final assessment will take into account the capacity of students 1) to acquire and use the basic notions of Latin language (passing grades); 2) to read, translate, and interpret texts in a correct way (positive grades); 3) to further explore the reading and the interpretation of the text in an independent fashion.

Erasmus students are allowed to use their own language (English, French, Spanish, German), in accordance of their own teaching agreements.

Teaching tools

Teaching material will be uploaded on the online platform, and distributed during classes in form of copies.

Office hours

See the website of Iolanda Ventura