Latin 3001: Latin 3001 R

Syllabus: Beginning Latin, Spring 2023

Instructor: Visiting Professor Emily Fairey

Class Meeting Times: Mon, Thu 2-3:25 PM;Tue 12:35-1:30 PM

Classroom: Titsworth Living Room

Office: Titsworth 2

Rome has left behind testaments of its strengths and weaknesses to many cultures. Our task in Beginning Latin is to approach this immense culture and history through the Latin Language.

Beginning Latin (Spring Semester) will cover chapters 20 – 40 of Wheelock’s Latin. Each chapter introduces new paradigms of verb, noun, or adjective inflection, points of syntax, and vocabulary. Acquisition of grammatical material and vocabulary is insured by the inclusion of sentences, which exercise the students’ understanding of new material, as well as continued recognition of material encountered earlier in the text. Etymologies of English words derived from Latin are included in each chapter. Finally, students are given the opportunity to begin reading authentic Latin by Roman authors in the Sententiae Antiquae section of each chapter.

We will also work throughout the semester in conferences on reading selections of Vergil’s Aeneid in Latin (Pharr text).

Texbooks:

• Wheelock, Latin, 7th ed.
• Vergil’s Aeneid in Latin (Pharr edition)

Homework, Quizzes and Tests: Homework will be assigned on a daily basis and announced on MySLC. There will also be weekly, required practice quizzes online. There will be a midterm test with in-class and take-home components. There will also be a final exam with in class and take-home components, and a brief essay.

Etiquette: Please be respectful to classmates and professor. Inform me in advance if you need to miss class or conference. Drinks in class are fine, but please try to eat in our break periods or before class.

Conferences: Conference time will be 30 minutes every 2 weeks, so students will be on an A or B week schedule. Spring conferences will be devoted to going over any difficulties with class materials, reading selections of Vergil’s Aeneid in Latin, and well as choosing and developing a topic from that text for a short paper and presentation of your paper to the class.

Conference projects: There will be one paper and interpretive project, or presentation to the class, which will be developed over the semester in individual conferences

LATN 3001-R: Beginning Latin (Spring 2023) /Paper Instructions

“I find pleasure in meditating, seeking ideas, inventing; what I dislike is putting things in order, and the proof that I have less logic than wit is that it is always the transitions that cost me the biggest effort.”

--- Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1. 1129 (Pleíade Edition of Rousseau’s complete works).

Passage and Translations Selection:  Due by TBA (in writing): book and line numbers of your selected Aeneid passage plus names and dates of the two translations.

Passage Oral Presentation: to be scheduled.

Paper: Due TBA via email. (a complete, polished paper – NOT a rough draft)

                         Email as Microsoft Word attachment to efairey@sarahlawrence.edu

I.          Choose a passage and two translations and inform me (in writing) of your choice by Thurs., March 4.

Select one 6-10 line passage of the Aeneid that you find particularly interesting or significant. Select two English translations of this passage that you will compare and contrast to the Latin text and to one another. (Provide the exact line numbers of the Latin passage and the names of the authors of the two translations that you will be comparing to it.)

II.        Prepare a brief (10-15 min.) presentation of the passage: date to be assigned.

“Decode” the passage and identify the scansion. (I can help you with this.)

Be prepared to discuss why you selected this passage, what themes and issues it addresses in the poem, what challenges it poses for translation, and why you selected the two English translations you have chosen.

You do not at this stage need to know precisely (or even vaguely) what your paper will argue. Think of this as an opportunity to raise questions and receive useful feedback from the class.

III.       Write a short Paper (3-4 pp.): Due : TBA via email.

email as Microsoft Word attachment to mailto:efairey@sarahlawrence.edu

This must be a complete, polished paper, NOT a rough draft.

Include (as a cover sheet or appendix to the paper) the full Latin text of the passage and the full text of both translations that you are examining. Also include a Works Cited list with full bibliographical information for the translations: title, translator, place and date of publication, book and line numbers.

Helpful(?) Hints:

Begin your process by doing your own literal “decoding” of the Latin text. (Completely parse every word in the passage. Identify the range of possible meanings for each word and phrase.) Next, consider the syntax, vocabulary, style, and tone of Vergil’s text and each translation. List all of the differences that you can discern between the three versions. Which translator stays closer to which of the various possible literal meanings of the Latin words and/or to the Latin word order? Which translator embellishes more (introduces new images, metaphors, themes)? Do both embellish, but in different directions? How do the three versions differ in word order, phrasing, alliteration, tone, ambiguities, etc.?

Ask yourself why you selected this particular passage. Why is it thematically important in its own book or in the Aeneid as a whole? How does the Latin text and each translation influence (shape) the reader’s response to the passage? How does each version affect your feelings about the character(s) and incident(s) concerned? What overall impression does each version give? Does the Latin text and/or one translation, for example, make the scene or the characters seem more or less sympathetic, admirable, tame, exciting, vivid, challenging, troubling, etc.? What interpretive conclusions does each of the three versions invite or permit? What, in consequence, does the three-way comparison reveal? [You are looking for a pattern of emphases within each version and between the three.]

Your paper will, of course, have a central argument. This must be an analytical claim that you can prove, using textual evidence. (The thesis should not merely be a re-statement of your topic.) Try to devise a thesis that can account for (explain) all of the differences that you identify. Be sure to consider the context of the passage and its relevance to themes in the Aeneid as a whole. State the thesis of your argument in the opening paragraph. Underline the thesis statement.

Be sure to order your points logically and make clear the connections between paragraphs. Support your arguments with specific textual examples. But be concise. Select only the evidence you need to support your argument. Avoid lengthy descriptions. Always cite book and line numbers when quoting, paraphrasing, or referencing the Latin text or the translations.

Remember: good writing involves re-writing and re-writing. Often you do not know what you have to say until you begin writing, and you may not discern your central thesis until you have written several drafts. (Hint: the best arguments often wind up buried in the conclusion. Lift that great idea out of the conclusion, dust it off, organize your introductory paragraph to lead up to it, state it clearly in the introduction, and then re-organize the paper to support it.)

N.B. Be sure to discuss Vergil’s text and both translations on each point. Do not discuss Vergil’s text alone in the first third of the paper and then one translation in the second third of the paper and the other translation in the final third of the paper. That approach leaves the work of analysis to your reader. Also, be careful not to substitute your own literal “decoding” for Vergil’s Latin text. Remember that each Latin word or phrase may have more than one “literal” English meaning. Compare/contrast the two translations directly with Vergil’s Latin and with one another.

(by Emily Anhalt)