3rd Nine Weeks

Tres puellae...

As we start the second semester, you will be doing extensive work with prose composition, which is the translating of English into Latin.  You will be working from the book Latin Prose Composition for Schools and Colleges by Robertson.  Each chapter I assign contains an explanatory/review section that you must read.  Following this are sections marked "Translate into English" and "Translate into Latin."  For each of the assigned chapters, you are to complete half of the "Translate into English" sentences and half the "Translate into Latin sentences" in the A section.  You will find an A and a B section, but you will only concern yourself with the A section.  If ever there is an odd number, round down, e.g. if there are 11 items in the section, you would complete five.

You should work at the rate of a chapter every 1-2 days.  For the section that involves translation into English, copy each Latin sentence and show your English translation beneath it.  For the section that involves translation into Latin, copy the English sentence, show your identifications of the words beneath it, and then your Latin translation.  Your identifications should be as follows:

nouns, pronouns, adjectives:  case, number, gender
verbs:  person, number, tense, mood, voice
participles:  tense, voice, case, number, gender
infinitives:  tense, voice
gerunds:  case

The chapters you will complete are:  1, 6, 7, 8, read page 34 and do Ch.10, 14, 17, 18, 20, 27, 28, 29, and 35.

While I encourage you to work together, each person is responsible for her own knowledge.  Each of you must bring me her paper every day or two.  I will correct it and give it back to you promptly.

This is good review for those of you who may be taking Latin in college, and it will lead into a larger project that we will do the second half of this quarter.

Please let me know if you have any questions.  Vobis bona fortuna!

Your Very Own Ovid!

Tres puellae...

Over the next two weeks, each of you must translate one of Ovid's Amores from your book. Each puella must pick a different poem.

Your task then is to write your own English poem to a beloved in Ovid's style. Your poem must pick a structured form of English poetry, so no blank verse is allowed. You must submit with your poem an analysis of how it is Ovidian in style and a passage from Ovid (in Latin and with your own translation) that you have imitated.

If you have questions about Ovid's style or about English poetry, please see me or email me.

Your final exam will cover all of the Ovid you have read.

Ovid Art

Tres puellae...



It is time to begin the first of a couple of projects related to your reading of Ovid. Each of you needs to pick one of the myths you are currently reading...Pyramus & Thisbe, Daphne & Apollo, or Pygmalion...and create an art project illustrating the myth. Each of you must pick a different story, so you will need to decide together who is working on what. Your guidelines are the state art packet. Your piece of artwork must adhere to those guidelines and must express as much of your chosen myth as possible. For example, it would not be sufficient to turn in a statue of a girl and claim that it was the statue made by Pygmalion.



The deadline for this is the half week that ends in Thanksgiving Break.

Ovid

We move now to a study of Ovid. Begin by downloading the selections from his Ars Amatoria on the Nota Bene page of our website, www.nclatin.org. Read through those selections this first week of the quarter. After fall break you will get actual books (yea!) for more of his poems that relate to love and mythology. There will be a couple of fun, creative projects as we go along.

Philosophy Project

As you continue your work on Seneca and Cicero, I want to give you the guidelines for a project that is due Wednesday, October 6.

Part I: Poster

Each of you must pick one school of philosophy...Stoics, Epicureans, or Academics...and create a poster explaining what they were all about. Each of you should pick a different school, so decide among yourselves who will do what. The poster should have a combination of graphics and text according to the rules for posters at state convention. These will be displayed in the hall outside our classroom, and if you go to state, you can enter your poster in the art contest.

Part II: Paper

The paper is a more in-depth survey of your chosen school of philosophy. It should include famous philosophers and works associated with that school. It must also include a section in Latin, with translation, from either Lucretius, Seneca, or Cicero and a discussion of how that passage illustrates your chosen school of thought.

If you have questions, please ask or post here.

De Rerum Natura

I thought it was very interesting the way he described and used many examples to describe what you cannot see with the naked eye. The fact that he was accurately able to understand some of the basic principles of atoms is amazing especially without any experiments or technology.This piece was very challenging becuase everything was so abstract. There were many pronouns and a lot adjectives and particples. It was hard to find what they modified.
Compared to the Aeneid, they both used comparisons that are found in nature and that anyone would be able to understand. However Virgil used mostly concrete diction that created a picture in the minds eye while Carus used abstract diction and that pushed your mind to be open in order to explore what he was talking about. Virgil used alot of figurative language as well as many constructions and phrases. This was due to the need to create a time line for the story. Since there was no real time line to De Rerum Natura, it was difficult to see where Carus was going with what he was saying. This made it especially difficult to translate.

New Texts, etc.

When you are finished with the Lucretius projects...posting on the blog and the paper...you will move to the next two authors, Seneca and Cicero. You will find your Seneca text here and your Cicero text here. Begin reading the Seneca, which is actually in the form of letters to his friend Lucilius, then move on to the Cicero. After you have gotten started, I will have some guiding questions posted here. Just to let you know, this will culminate in a paper/poster project.

On another note, be sure to check my comments to your posts.

Salve!

Ok so here are my thoughts on de rerum natura:

Challenges of translation for me as usual were figuring out word order and different grammar constructions I was re-familiarizing with after the summer vacation. Additionally some of the vocab was very abstract due to the fact that it was on the topic of philosophy involving particles.

I was able to draw paralells between the style of Homer in the Illiad and Lucretius in De rerum. This made sense to me as they were both epics. I noticed that Lucretius used comparisons, similes and even extended metaphors when explaining or describing things. This made it easier for me to understand the concepts, which reminded me of all the comparisons and mental pictures in Homers Illiad last year.

I thought it was interesting subject matter and well written.

Lucretius This Week

Good work, Alex, on the background for Lucretius!

Now, vos tres puellae, since you should be at the end of the readings, here is what I want you to do:

1. Each of you post on the blog about the following: What did you like and what did you not like about De Rerum Natura? What was the most challenging aspect of translating these selections, and why? Pick one other Latin author and discuss how Lucretius's writing is similar and/or different, thinking about such things as grammar, vocabulary, and style.
2. Prepare a 3-5 page paper (typed, double-spaced), due Friday, September 3 (the same day as your Latin Club dues), in which you address the two numbered items in my first post, which you can access here. There are several items to consider in each of those sections, so be sure to addresss everything. You should cite Latin, with your own translations, to support your points.

Ok so here is what I found about Lucretius:

He was a client/friend of Gaius Memmius

Parts of the poem suggest that it was published without revision: most speculate this was due to his untimely death

De rerum natura was his only work

The purpose of de rerum natura is to free people from superstition and fear of death

And as magister P said it is an epic poem about philosophy

I was able to log in! Magister P I will probably finish up the translation of lucretius by monday or tuesday and now that I can see the questions on the blog I will be able to address them in my work.

Thanks for the help!

Opening Thoughts

Okay, so you have your text for Lucretius. As you will see to the right of this page, there is a link to the online Latin dictionary, so that should be of some help. There are various translations of Lucretius around. If you find something good, post it here.

Pace yourselves so that you are finished with the text I gave you in the next two to three weeks. Along the way, feel free to post questions here, and I will respond.

As you translate, please post any discussions that you have together. I would love to know what you think of Lucretius and/or his poetry and/or his subject matter as you translate.

There are two standing questions I want to post at the outset. Please respond to these along the way. You may not be able to answer them right away, and you may need to answer them more than once as you work your way through the material.

1. How does what Lucretius says fit with the law of conservation of matter? Discuss the law of matter conservation, how it came to be, etc.

2. What kind of reasoning does Lucretius use? What examples can you find of his reasoning from a part to a whole? How effective is this kind of reasoning? Where else do you see this kind of reasoning used?

One last thing...work together to post here a little background on Lucretius. Who was he? Where was he from? What do we know of his life, his poetry, his philosophy? Put something together in summary. You can use the Internet, but give links to anything you use.

Valete!