Learning objectives
The present module is the first unit of Latin Literature 2-unit course (12 CFU) and aims at providing students with critical methodology,translation techniques and critical reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts. The first part of the course aims at introducing students to Latin historiography so that students should be able to:
- place authors and literary movements in their proper historical context;
- read and analyze Latin literary texts after the basic language skills are acquired.
Classroom lectures, which are supplemented by practice sessions and tutorials (morphology, syntax, scansion, meter), will focus on the reading and interpretation of the texts provided.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of the Latin language
Course unit content
Historiography in the classical age: readings from Sallust
After briefly outlining the development of historiography as a genre from the archaic to the classical age, the course aims to investigate the form of monographic treatise, with readings from Sallust's works; more precisely, extracts from The Coniuratio Catilinae will be read, translated and commented.
Full programme
- - -
Bibliography
Reading list provided during the lessons and available in the Secretrary Office.
Recommended text:
Sallustio, De Catilinae coniuratione, a cura di E. Malcovati, Torino, Paravia, 1971 (=1978).
Sallustio, La congiura di Catilina, trad. e note di Lisa Piazzi, Introd. di Graziana Brescia, Siena, Lorenzo Barbera Editore, 2006.
A. La Penna, Aspetti del pensiero storico latino, Torino, Einaudi, 1978.
Required Text Books:
A. Traina – G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino universitario (with
the exception of chapters VI, VIII, IX), Bologna Pàtron, 2007;
B. Morphology and Syntax (students will be free to select a Latin
Grammar text book of their choice);
C. Cicero, Cato maior. De senectute
Teaching methods
The course consists of classroom lectures supplemented by weekly
t u t o r i a l s .
Through classroom lectures students will be guided to a first
methodological approach for the study of different texts according to the
specific features of literary genres and authors.
Classroom lectures will be supplemented by practice sessions and
tutorials to support students in gaining the resources and skills needed to
properly read and translate texts and to understand the most important
phonological and metrical aspects. Tutorial activities will be scaled up
and down according to students’ abilities and needs.
Assessment methods and criteria
Students will be assessed by an oral examination based on the readings
and other material used in the course and that will be administered at
the end of the two courses.
The assessment aims to test:
1) proper knowledge and critical understanding of the literary and
cultural background of the main and most important literary genres
within the field of Latin Literature;
2) proper reading and translation of Latin texts;
3) critical and interpretation skills along with the ability to produce
personal reinterpretation and interdisciplinary links;
4) oral proficiency; correct use of language; ability to give proper answers
to given questions.
Students will have to fully achieve the first two assessment criteria and
score a minimum of 60 percent or better to get a pass grade.
Other information
- - -