Teaching Delivery: This module is taught in 20 weekly lectures and 20 weekly PGTA-led seminars.

Content: This module offers study of classical Latin language, involving the reading and translation into English of prose and verse texts, exercises in grammatical analysis and stylistic criticism, the translation of English sentences into Latin, and the scansion of hexameter and / or elegiac verse. The module is designed for those who already have a good A-level knowledge of the language or have passed Intermediate Latin B. It prepares students for studying whole works in the original language and therefore provides a step towards Latin Texts 2.

The module consists of two elements:

(i) Reading of extended sections of relatively straightforward texts of classical Latin prose and verse, which are prepared in advance and worked through in detail in class. This will include comment on style and grammar (two hours per week with main tutor).

(ii) The systematic study and revision of the principles of Latin grammar syntax, which is practiced by translating English into Latin (one hour per week with PGTA).

Students will be expected to have read the entire set texts by the end of the relevant term; a few pages of Latin will have to be prepared every week.

The module may be taken as 30 credits (two texts) or as 15 credits (one text). Students taking the module as 15 credits are expected to take it in the first term. Starting the module in the second term may be possible following advice from the Departmental Tutor.

Skills: By the end of the module, students should have a good knowledge of classical Latin language, be trained to translate fluently from Latin into English and from English into Latin and be able to analyze linguistic features of a text in relation to its content.

Module texts:

Text term 1: J.T. Ramsey (ed.), Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae. Second Edition, Oxford / New York 200

Text term 2: Ovid, Metamorphoses Book XIV (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics), ed. K. Sara Myers

Prose composition both terms: R. Colebourn, Latin Sentence and Idiom. A Composition Course, Bristol 1948 (reprints).