OVERVIEW

The course aims to initiate a university level analysis of Latin literature history, themes and texts

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to give students: a) methodologies and tools to interpret and translate Latin literary texts; b) a good knowledge of the most important Latin authors from the pre-literary period to Apuleius with particular attention on literary genres and themes of Latin culture. 

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students must acquire the methodologies and tools to directly interpret and analyse Latin texts from a linguistic, stylistic-rhetorical, thematic and historical-literary point of view. Students must therefore be familiar with some of the main issues of historical grammar such as Latin prosody and metrics (with particular attention on hexameter and pentameter).

Students must also develop a good knowledge of the history of Latin literature from its origins to the late imperial age both in relation to the most important authors and the series of cultural and literary trends of the different phases of Latin literary history with particular attention on the evolution and transformation of literary genres. 

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The Troades by Seneca: theatre of destruction and collective tragedy".

In a scenario of ruin in which a Troy burned to the ground constitutes a backdrop of death and numinous apparitions, Seneca’s tragedy stages the collective grief of defeat and loss of homeland. Because the men died in battle, the women of Troy, who are prisoners of war, are the protagonists of the last painful days of their land before being separated and disbanded and losing their identity and freedom thus becoming the slaves of the winners who take them to Greece, forcing them to abandon the east.

Built by contaminating the plot of several Greek tragedies and hinged on two dramatic poles, the sacrifice of young Polyxena and the ruthless killing of little Astyanax, the Troades is in several ways an anomalous tragedy in Seneca’s work as it is bereft of a protagonist on which all the dramatic action centres. This is all the more reason why it evokes the dramatic choir of defeat, forced migration and collective exile: these themes have a contemporary resonance which explains the renewed interest in recent years in this tragedy and its staging.

1) A first part of the course focuses on an introduction to the history of Latin theatre; 2) the second and more substantial part of the course focuses on reading and interpreting Seneca’s Troades; 3) lectures during the year will introduce some of the main historical grammar issues such as Latin prosody and metrics (with particular reference to hexameter and pentameter).

Besides Seneca’s Troades the programme also envisages reading two other Latin texts that are connected to the monographic course according to whether students wish to acquire 12, 9 or 6 cfu (see Texts/Bibliography). 

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

GABRIELLA MORETTI (President)

LARA NICOLINI (President)

LESSONS

Class schedule

LATIN LITERATURE

EXAMS

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Oral exam preceded by a written test aimed at preparing for translation from Latin.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students are urged to attend the course.

Students who have never studied Latin, have done only two years or who have lacunas in their linguistic preparation, are urged to take the Latin language course organised in the context of  the Cultural assets course also used by Arts students. The Latin Literature exam requires dealing with literary texts which are by nature linguistically and stylistically complex. It is therefore impossible to take this exam without the necessary linguistic fundamentals. If these fundamentals were not acquired during high school, students must be aware of the absolute necessity of acquiring them by constantly and actively attending the Latin language course and undertaking continuous individual study and exercises.