00607 - Latin Language and Literature II

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

Rome and the myth of Troy: through the analysis of texts (Virgil and Ovid in particular, both in Latin and in translation) this course seeks to provide students with the tools to interpret the Roman cultural tradition.

The fall of Troy and the ‘Tragedy’ of Dido in the Aeneid: on a symbolical level Virgil’s account of the Ilioupersis in Aeneid II can be read as a foreshadowing of Dido’s tragic end, in Aeneid IV, and, at the same time, of the historical destruction of Carthage at the end of the Punic Wars. Book II and Book IV of the Aeneid will be read and examples of their Reception (in literature, music and visual arts) will be explored; in particular Aen. 2.1-249; 268-317; 437-558 and Aen. 4.1-237; 522-705 will be read (and analysed) in Latin.

Language and Literature: in addition to the study of the subjects of the ‘specialized course’, students are required to study an outline of Latin Literary History and of Latin Language and Syntax (cf. Reading/Bibliography).

Readings/Bibliography

Aeneid

R.A.B. Mynors (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford 1969

alternatively:

Virgilio, Eneide, a c. di R. Calzecchi Onesti, Torino, Einaudi, 1967; Virgilio, Eneide, traduzione di M. Ramous, introduzione di G.B. Conte, commento di G. Baldo, Venezia, Marsilio, 1998.

Studies

R. Heinze, Virgil's epic technique, Bristol, Bristol Classical Press, 1993; G.B. Conte, The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Virgilian Epic. Edited by S.J. Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007; A. La Penna, Didone, Enciclopedia Virgiliana, Roma, IEI,. 1985, vol. II, pp. 48-55; F. Piccirillo, Laocoonte, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana , Roma, IEI, 1986, vol. III, pp.113-118; G.B. Conte, The rhetoric of imitation: genre and poetic memory in Virgil and other Latin poets. By Gian Biagio Conte. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986.

Literary History: students are required to study the history of Latin Literature, in particular a biographical and stylistic profile of the following authors: Augustine, Ammianus Marcellinus, Apuleius, Catullus, Caesar, Cicero, Cornelius Nepo, Ennius, Juvenal, Historia Augusta, Horace, Jerome, Livy, Livius Andronicus, Lucan, Lucilius, Lucretius, Martial, Ovid, Petronius, Plautus, Pliny the Elder, Propertius, Quintilian, Sallust, Seneca, Suetonius, Tacitus, Terence, Varro, Virgil. Suggested reading: G.B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Latin Language and Syntax

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.

Teaching methods

Lectures in class. Interactive teaching, with individual correction of assignments (especially for the Seminar on Latin Language ab initio).

Assessment methods

Oral examination. Students will be tested on their knowledge of the history of Latin Literature, on their ability to read, understand, translate and analyse the Latin passages in the syllabus.

Teaching tools

Teaching is supplemented by a seminar on Latin Morphology and Syntax (ab initio).

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

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Ziosi