Classical and Post-Classical Latin
Module code: EN7218
This module is aimed at beginners who have never studied Latin before, although provision will be made for students who have taken Latin GCSE and/or A-Level.
For educated English-speaking people up until the early twentieth century, Latin was not a dusty object of curiosity -- a 'dead' language -- but a vital language on which the discussion of philosophical ideas, the writing of history, the delivery of education, and the development of literary expression depended.
The richness and diversity of Latin texts -- from the language's first flourishing in ancient Rome to its ubiquity in the religion, philosophy, and literature of the Middle Ages and then the 'rebirth' of classical ideas and art during the Renaissance, when Latin editions and English translations sprang up throughout Europe -- are still remarkable to us today. Throughout its history and development, literature in English has owed a vast debt to Latin literature and culture. This module will foster your awareness of how the Latin language works and why Latin was of fundamental cultural importance not only in the world of ancient Rome but also throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
The texts studied on this module convey the full range of how Latin developed across two millennia and show what a vivid, flexible, elegant language it was. Readings, drawn from a variety of sources, will include:
- Virgil's pastoral poems
- A medieval saint's life
- An erotic poem by Catullus addressed to an unreliable mistress
- A letter in Latin from an Elizabethan undergraduate to his brother complaining about bad college food
- Strange, wonderful, and often brutal mythological tales
- Coins, graffiti, and inscriptions
We will consider texts in English translation, where available, to get a fuller sense of historical and cultural context.
The module's themes include history writing, letters, biography and hagiography (saints' lives), student writing, pastoral poetry, legal texts, mythology, geography and travel writing, erotic/love poetry, satire and humour, oratory, rhetoric, and sermons.