Author: Colin Angevine

Thank you, Latin class, for the great joy you have brought into my world.

Click here to read the thank-you note that I shared at the end of the year.

Oh, and a few fond memories to look back on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWvB8NIEuo

And lastly:

Please check your email — I shared the presentation with you directly rather than embedding it here.

A bit more detail on the requirements of the three final project options:

• Catullus essay in English
  
  • organize all of the poems about the Lesbia affair into a sequence
  • analyze the poetry to justify the sequence you suggest
  • at least 5+ pages
  • blend word-level analysis and high-level discussion of the progressing narrative
• Write the missing Catullus poem
  • compose a Latin poem in meter that reflects Catullus’s style and content
  • do not repeat Catullus — your work should still be original
  • at least 10+ lines
  • a brief companion piece offering translation, scansion, and notes on poetic devices
• Compose lyrics for a new FCS anthem
  • work with Mr Luzuriaga to compose Latin lyrics for a new choral & orchestral piece that will be performed next year
  • work with BC & Mr Luzuriaga to develop themes, meter, word choice, etc
  • at least 10+ lines
  • a brief companion piece offering translation, scansion, and notes on poetic devices
  • be flexible to the idea that many ideas might be merged into the final musical performance
• ???
  • So far I have received one proposal for a new kind of final project that I did not originally suggest. Do you have some exciting ideas of your own? Let’s talk.

Expect to have a check-in appointment with BC before the end of the month, and a due date for this final project by the end of May.

Check out this interesting article from the New York Times about a Latin news broadcast!

For a group of people who understands the power of words, I think you are not just capable of — but responsible for — understanding this message.

Especially when you’ve got people out there to translate for you:

I read this today, and thought you all might enjoy another brief reminder of why we study Classics:

If we permit ourselves to compare small things with great ones (this formulation is itself a central topos of the classical tradition), we would hope to serve, in our own small way, as guides for the interested and perplexed, as the Sibyl did for Virgil’s Aeneas, and as Virgil then did for Dante, bringing to renewed life the only apparently dead and restoring a voice to those who had given us ours but had temporarily lost their own.

-from the preface to The Classical Tradition.

Seth MacFarlane really could have benefitted from studying Catullus, Horace, and Juvenal a bit more. Read this article on one of the oldest rules of satire: never punch down.

(And while we’re criticizing the Oscars, I think you all might appreciate and understand this critique entitled: “The Awful Gender Politics of ‘We Saw Your Boobs’“.)

• Catullus acts indignant, using the word “istos” (line 26, “those men”) when referring to the litter, which has a very negative connotation. Catullus has no reason to be disappointed with the litter, he is merely taking his frustrations out on the slaves instead of accepting that he made a blunder
• However, once caught in the lie his poetic style sputters with indignation; his sentences become hard to follow, his reasoning uncharacteristically off point.
• In defending himself he cedes all culpability by assuming a passive role; he says he did not make a profit in Bithynia because his praetor was an “irrumator” (“a man who forces someone to perform oral sex”, line 12) and then later explains that he lied because “fugit me ratio” (“reason escaped me”, line 29). The former demands forced submission and the latter places Catullus in the passive role by having him be the direct object and the “reason” the subject. Had he remained in the passive role, this tactic might have been successful in his recovery; however, he instead attacks Varus’ girlfriend, assuming an active role.
• In Catullus 10, Catullus reacts to being caught in a lie by shifting the blame to the girl who catches him. Catullus achieves this by muddling his words and using accusatory language.
• Another way Catullus chooses to show his reaction to the reader is through the two dialogues, his own internal one and the one he is having with the girl, which he parallels throughout the entire poem
• However, Catullus’s aggression is weakened by the fact that he chooses never to address Varus or his girl in the vocative. The litotes he uses in line 4 when insulting the girl also adds to his circumlocution…
• His verbal attack on the girl continues in line 33, where the elision in the phrase “male et molesta” (“awfully troublesome”) highlights the alliteration of the m’s, creating a mumbling effect. Additionally, there is repetition of s sounds in “insulsa” “molesta,” and “vivis” in this line, which creates a hissing effect. Put together, these auditory cues add to Catullus’s slander while simultaneously making it sound more indirect.
• By adding this insult in a passing phrase, Catullus makes it more subtle, preventing the reader from focusing on Catullus’s harsh, crude words.
• The poet first attempts to defend himself to the girl, but stylistic choices such as his convoluted word order and some of his word choice render his defense somewhat ineffective. In the last two lines of the poem, however, Catullus goes on the offense against the girl who caught him in his lie. There, interestingly, it is his stylistic choices – specifically, his word choice – that make his insults all the more effective.
• Catullus loses his power when his lie is caught by the girl, and Catullus 10 is an attempt to recover it. To Catullus, words are power, and when he is first caught, Catullus stumbles over his words and loses his power
• In Catullus #10, the poet reacts to his being caught in his lie with indignation, as evidenced by the stylistic choices of his stumbling response and the defensive counterattack with which he follows.

The technology industry talks a lot about: “fail early; fail often.” It’s a mantra in software development that I think is closely related to innovation and growth.
Through the lens of Latin class, I think it might be related not only to innovation and growth, but also to stress and expectations.

Definitely worth a read.

UPDATE: Two more perspectives to share with you that I heard this weekend:

• “FAIL” — First Attempt In Learning
• And finally my favorite take on it: just change the conversation. Let’s not talk about “failure” and “success” anymore. Let’s talk about play:

Do kids who go to Montessori school think of themselves as Failures when their blocks don’t quite fit together? I doubt it. 

Click here to read more of this great article.