00603 - Latin Language and Literature

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Docente: Antonio Ziosi
  • Credits: 12
  • SSD: L-FIL-LET/04
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Ravenna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Cultural Heritage (cod. 9076)

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. Et in Arcadia ego: Virgil’s Eclogues and the ideal of pastoral

The course consists of a reading of Virgil’s Eclogues and of an analysis of their idealisation in modern poetry, music and figurative art.

Texts: reading and commentary of Virgil’s Eclogues and of a selection of passages from Renaissance and modern poems.

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 Latin) Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics 4.453-566-
- 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

1. TEXTS
Virgilio, Bucoliche, introduzione di A. La Penna, traduzione e note di L. Canali, Milano, BUR, 1978; in alternativa: Publio Virgilio Marone, Le Bucoliche, Introduzione e commento di Andrea Cucchiarelli, traduzione di Alfonso Traina, Roma, Carocci editore, 2011.

Virgilio, Georgiche, Introduzione di G.B. Conte, testo, traduzione e note di A. Barchiesi, Milano, Mondadori, 1980.


2. FURTHER READINGS
A. Cucchiarelli, Introduzione in Publio Virgilio Marone, Le Bucoliche, Introduzione e commento di Andrea Cucchiarelli, traduzione di Alfonso Traina, Roma, Carocci editore, 2011.

Arcadia, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, vol. 1, Roma, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia italiana, 1984, 272-285.

 

3. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
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 are 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 an online coirse on Latin Morphology and Syntax (ab initio).

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Ziosi