Latin: Reading and Interpreting Sources I

Course goals

The successful student

• will be able to analyse, interpret and translate Latin literary texts of intermediate difficulty from the early imperial period in their cultural and historical context;
• will understand the development of the Latin language in the early imperial period and will be able to reflect on this orally and in writing;
• will have experience with the use of the scholarly apparatus (specialised dictionaries, grammar, bibliography, databases) belonging to the field;
• will use their growing proficiency in classical Latin for subsequent course work in the RMA programme, including research apprenticeships and the RMA-thesis.

Content

Knowing a language is a prerequisite to get in-depth access to any culture, ancient and modern alike. This course discusses Latin literature of the imperial period, and the collections and databases in which the sources are contained. Texts will be read in their original language and parallel translations. To further independent access to and understanding of the texts, the principles of Latin grammar (morphology and syntax) and literary language (stylistic features) will be discussed. The genre by which these skills will be acquired is biography (Cornelius Nepos), supplemented by lyric verse (Catullus, Martialis).

Latin was the language of the ancient Romans, whose culture was widespread over the Mediterranean area and has been of foundational importance to later cultures and history. After the decline of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the Latin language lived on in diverse nations, regions and institutions. Far into modern history, it also was a very important literary language, employed by great variety of authors. Learning Latin therefore enables students to understand authors from most diverse historical periods and thus to transcend the confines of their own time and place. Attention is also paid to cultural aspects of Roman culture, such as daily life, slavery, the geography of the Roman empire, mythology and Roman education.

Class meets twice a week. For each class, you are required to prepare selected text for analysis. Examination will be executed in two equal parts: textual / grammatical analysis, and a test on the content of the discussed topics.