LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Latin literature course (I year) aims to give students a good knowledge of the history of Latin literature from the archaic period to the 5th century AD by directly reading texts; knowledge of the themes of Latin literature and of the fundamental range of literary genres with their formal characteristics and content together with the capacity to move between genres applying suitable interpretation techniques; the capacity to identify the elements of continuity and innovation in Roman literature with respect to the great Greek experience that preceded it; the capacity to analyse texts in the language proposed during the course and, in general, any text in Latin, and the practical knowledge of metrics.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Latin literature course (I year) has the following objectives:

• to give students a good knowledge of the history of Latin literature in its diachronic evolution from the archaic period to the 5th century AD by directly reading texts;
• to give students knowledge of the themes of Latin literature and the fundamental range of literary genres with their formal characteristics and content; capacity to move between genres applying suitable interpretation techniques;
• to give students knowledge and understanding of the evolution of the Latin language over about eight centuries of history (with particular attention to the awareness of various registers and levels of the language, the selection of which is tied naturally to the literary genre);
• to give students the capacity to identify elements of continuity and innovation in this literature with respect to the great Greek experience that preceded it;
• to give students understanding of and capacity to analyse the texts proposed during the course and, in general, any text in Latin;
• mastery of Latin reading and consequently excellent knowledge of prosody and metrics.

To this end a large selection of texts in Latin will be commented. Various other texts will be added which must be read by students. A part of the course will be devoted to the fundamental notions of prosody and metric (hexameter and pentameter) and to practical exercises of metric reading.

The course is useful for the acquisition of 24 credits for access to teaching.

PREREQUISITES

A solid knowledge of the Latin language is required and, for those students who have not already taken the test in the Access test, as it is the case for classicists, it is required to pass a Preliminary written Translation Test from the Latin (information on this should be requested to Prof. Lara Nicolini, who is in charge of the test).

Please note that to facilitate the preparation of solid grammatical bases and for the preparation of the Preliminary written Translation Test, first and second semester Latin lessons for beginners, intermediate Latin lessons and advanced Latin lessons, open to all students, are activated (see more details in the field FURTHER INFORMATION).

TEACHING METHODS

The course will alternate lectures at a distance, seminar lessons, practical metric reading exercises, all carried out on the Teams platform.

The Teams code to access the distance teaching lessons is as follows:

kk99an3

The lessons will in any case be recorded, to allow even those with work commitments to attend them later, and for everyone to see them again for review (on Aulaweb the link to the individual lessons will be indicated from time to time): however, it is strongly recommended to attend synchronous, ie during the normal lesson hours, in order to interact with the teacher through interventions and questions.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

A trial  for  magic in the Antonine age. Apuleius' Apologia between oratory tradition, encyclopedia and (self) anthology.

Apuleius’ Apologia or De Magia, the oration that Apuleius pronounced to defend himself from the accusation of having seduced his wealthy wife Pudentilla through magical arts, constitutes the only Latin judicial oration of imperial age that has come down to us. It therefore represents a valuable object of analysis to reflect on the changes undergone by the oratory genre in the direction of the mixing of genres: from the analysis of this very lively and often theatrical text, a surprising encyclopedic character emerges, which for example incorporates the varied scientific interests of the author for optics, zoology, medicine, philosophy etc., also taking the form of a real (self) anthology in response to the violent criticisms that had been addressed to the cultural figure of the author by his opponents. From the Apuleius’ response to these criticisms we also see emerge a proud claim to his mixed identity: Apuleius, seminumida and semigetulus by ethnicity, is part of a Hellenized North Africa, which by now masters Latin language and culture as part of a Roman-Hellenistic cultural koiné .

The accusation at the center of the trial, however, is that relating to magic: a key theme for the time, and which later will also be central to Apuleius in his famous  novel. He addresses the motif of magic, in fact, with that mixture of fascination and critical detachment that we will also find in the Metamorphoses, allowing a close comparison between the two texts; moreover, the theme of magic is approached at least in part by the demonological themes addressed by Apuleius in De deo Socratis.

The wide range of arguments used by Apuleius is then enclosed in a sparkling linguistic guise, which passes from the reflective tones of the erudite conversation with the judge Claudius Marcellus to the violent invectives against opponents in court, from sarcastic word games to the most skilled rhetorical ekphraseis, from surprisingly philological reasoning on documents up to the most daring and inventive personifications of abstract concepts.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

9 credit program:

Monographic course:

1) Apuleio, Apologia (l'edizione BUR dal titolo La Magia, a cura di Claudio Moreschini,  o quella Garzanti, dal titolo Della Magia, a cura di Concetto Marchesi).

Non attending students will add: Alberto Cavarzere, Oratoria a Roma: storia di un genere pragmatico, Roma, Carocci, 2000. 

Supplementary texts (individual preparation by the students):

2) Seneca, Medea (Seneca, Medea. Fedra, a cura di Alfonso Traina e Giuseppe Gilberto Biondi, BUR, Milano 1989).

3) Cicerone, De divinatione, libro I (Cicerone, Della divinazione, a cura di Sebastiano Timpanaro, Garzanti 1988, with the important commentary notes).

4) Ovidio, Heroides 4 (Fedra a Ippolito); 12 (Medea a Giàsone): (Ovidio, Lettere di eroine, a cura di Gianpiero Rosati, BUR, Milano 1989).

5)  History of Latin Literature: from the origins to the Vth century AD

It is recommended a good literary history manual for the Liceo classico, for example  G.B. Conte, Profilo storico della letteratura Latina, Le Monnier, Firenze 2019 (or, especially for those who had not already studied in high school the history of Latin literature,  it is recommended a literary history with an anthology of texts such as Storia e testi della Letteratura Latina, edited by G. B. Conte and E. Pianezzola, ed. Le Monnier).

6) For essential knowledge in the field of grammar, syntax and metrics, you should use:

A. Traina, G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino Universitario, Bologna, Pàtron 1988.

The chapter of this volume relating to metrics can be usefully integrated or replaced with the chapter (about twenty pages) by Sebastiano Timpanaro, Introduction to Latin prosody and metrics, which will be uploaded by the teacher on Aulaweb and then made available to students.

6 credit program:

Monographic course:

1) Apuleio, Apologia (l'edizione BUR dal titolo La Magia, a cura di Claudio Moreschini,  o quella Garzanti, dal titolo Della Magia, a cura di Concetto Marchesi).

Non attending students will add: Alberto Cavarzere, Oratoria a Roma: storia di un genere pragmatico, Roma, Carocci, 2000. 

Supplementary texts (individual preparation by the students):

2) Seneca, Medea (Seneca, Medea. Fedra, a cura di Alfonso Traina e Giuseppe Gilberto Biondi, BUR, Milano 1989).

3) Cicerone, De divinatione, libro I (Cicerone, Della divinazione, a cura di Sebastiano Timpanaro, Garzanti 1988, with the important commentary notes).

4)  History of Latin Literature: from the origins to the Vth century AD

It is recommended a good literary history manual for the Liceo classico, for example G.B. Conte, Profilo storico della letteratura Latina, Le Monnier, Firenze 2019 (or, especially for those who had not already studied in high school the history of Latin literature, it is recommended a literary history with an anthology of texts such as Storia e testi della Letteratura Latina, edited by G. B. Conte and E. Pianezzola, ed. Le Monnier).

5) For essential knowledge in the field of grammar, syntax and metrics, you should use:

A. Traina, G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino Universitario, Bologna, Pàtron 1988.

The chapter of this volume relating to metrics can be usefully integrated or replaced with the chapter (about twenty pages) by Sebastiano Timpanaro, Introduction to Latin prosody and metrics, which will be uploaded by the teacher on Aulaweb and then made available to students.

3 credit program:

Monographic course:

1) Apuleio, Apologia (l'edizione BUR dal titolo La Magia, a cura di Claudio Moreschini,  o quella Garzanti, dal titolo Della Magia, a cura di Concetto Marchesi).

Non attending students will add: Alberto Cavarzere, Oratoria a Roma: storia di un genere pragmatico, Roma, Carocci, 2000. 

2)  History of Latin Literature: from the origins to the Vth century AD

It is recommended a good literary history manual for the Liceo classico, for example  G.B. Conte, Profilo storico della letteratura Latina, Le Monnier, Firenze 2019 (or, especially for those who had not already studied in high school the history of Latin literature, it is recommended a literary history with an anthology of texts such as Storia e testi della Letteratura Latina, edited by G. B. Conte and E. Pianezzola, ed. Le Monnier).

3) For essential knowledge in the field of grammar, syntax and metrics, you should use:

A. Traina, G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino Universitario, Bologna, Pàtron 1988.

The chapter of this volume relating to metrics can be usefully integrated or replaced with the chapter (about twenty pages) by Sebastiano Timpanaro, Introduction to Latin prosody and metrics, which will be uploaded by the teacher on Aulaweb and then made available to students.