RE: VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation
Two points: 1. I agree that the Aeneid in translation generally fails to "grab" students as strongly as the Iliad and the Odyssey in translation do (I began studying Greek because I liked the Iliad and the Odyssey in English translation so much, but it took the Latin text of the Aeneid for me to get interested in the Aeneid), but even so I've had fairly good success with Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Aeneid, and that's the one I would recommend to teachers. 2. Tolkien certainly was not ignorant of the Greek and Latin languages, and he knew Classical literature. But they weren't his priorities. As a medievalist and a philologist of Germanic languages, he somewhat resented the larger amount of attention that Classical literature and languages generally received, and he had a vested interest in overturning the then-accepted hierarchy that placed Classical literature at the top. So as a rhetorical strategy Tolkien tended to disavow any interest in Greek and Roman epic, and he liked to deny that they had any influence on _The Lord of the Rings_. This has always exasperated me a bit, since I can't help thinking of the Iliad every time I read the chapters on the Siege of Minas Tirith in _The Lord of the Rings_. But it's a complicated situation. In a way, Tolkien is being disingenuous in his dismissal of Classical epic, but for all that he's being utterly sincere when he says he treasures the scraps of Saxon and Gothic we have extant more than all of Greek and Roman literature, and when he says he would gladly trade all of Homer's poems for more information on the lost legend of Wade Partly it comes down to glosso-esthetics, if I may coin such a term: Tolkien was acutely sensitive to the sounds of different languages, and he didn't much care for the sounds Latin and Greek, but he was utterly ravished by the sounds of Gothic, Old English, etc. And partly it's also a Keatsian attitude: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter..." I can see it both ways, myself. I treasure the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid more than any other poems extant, but at the same time I'm ravenously curious to know the story of Wade--and I could tear my hair with frustration when I read about Charlemagne commanding traditional Germanic legends to be written down in the vernacular, and I reflect that not a single copy of any of them is extant! Randi Eldevik Oklahoma State University Larry Swain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/06/04 05:14 PM Please respond to mantovano To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: (bcc: Randi C Eldevik/engl/cas/Okstate) Subject: RE: VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation --- vincenzo crupi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: - Larry Swain scripsit: AMen. One of the reasons I use Tolkien in a course that deals in European epic literature is because he drew so much from Vergil and Homer. If I recall correctly, Classical Language and Literature was his first "major" before! he switched to philology under Sisam. Et, mehercules, categoriae historiae aliquantum hic strident: horresco referens monstrum istud quod "European epic literature" appellas! Europaeae litterae nec revera sunt nec, si vestro iudicio sint, tamen eundem vultum exhibent et temporibus et locis. Tolkien animum applicat philologiae impulsore Sisam ! Sed id quod tu philologiam vocas rectius philologia Anglorum ad Medium Aevum pertinens appell! I'll only make a few brief comments to this diatribe. First, I used philology in the sense that it was used in British universities before World War I. "Philology" at that period was used to describe the nascent field undertaken in English departments by and large of Indo-European linguistics. This of course has changed drastically over the century, but in 1912, that's the way it was. I also didn't say "impulsore Sisam", I said under Sisam. Kenneth Sisam was Tolkien's tutor in 1912 and it was during this time that he migrated from the Classical faculty to the English faculty. Most of the rest of the message is beside the point. Tolkien et al came from a period in which all of European literature was seen as a continuum, two of the great works that this generation produced was Auerbach's Mimesis covering material from the ancient to the modern world, and Curtius' magnum opus, European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages which assumed a continuity between the Classical past and Medieval literature. That Tolkien also participated in this view is apparent to anyone who has read any of his scholarly pieces. That his fiction is influenced by his scholarly life is also quite well known. That he was embued with the Latin and Greek classics is plain as day. That the classics, as well as other sources, influenced his work is easily demonstrated. Si ergo tam multiplex implicatumque est quod Vergilius Graecis debet, ut qui duas tantum litte
Re: VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation
Hodie enimvero discipulis meis secundi anni cursus primam lectionem dedi de Vergilio. Antequam Vergilium inciperem, melius dicerem antequam cursum novum anni praesentis (1993-1994) inciperem, de historia plurima renovavi: 1) textus de quibus isto anno dicimus cum iis sunt auctorum qui sequentur: Varronis, Lucretii, Catulli, Horatii, Vergilii. Cum hi sint auctores, dixi de extremis annis Rei Publicae ( de Caesare - duce Santo Mazzarino viro docto nostro Italico a quo liber splendidus scriptus est - de Cicerone, de duabus viis tam diversis a Caesare et Cicerone secutis in philosophia quae spectat ad Rem publicam administrandam: quae esset pars imperialis quae esset pars quam italice "ultrasenatoria" dicimus). Bene explicavi mense septembre cum Varronem et Lucretium legerem non solum amicitiam Varronis Ciceronisque et inimicitiam eorum cum Caesare, sed etiam quomodo Ciceronis sententia et pars (optimates, scilcicet) per totum imperium duret: cum Tacito, cum Seneca, cum Lucano, cum auctoribus Historiae Augustae... Effeceram primis mensibus Scholae ut discipuli scirent clara luce Imperium a populi voluntate et consensu nasci, Rem Publicam et senatus potestatem ab optimatibus sustineri. Cum ad Horatium perventum est diximus de Augusto et de Imperio, sed non satis: rem insolitam notavimus cum discipulis Epicureos cum imperio stare, stoicos contra cum senatu; Horatium, qui scripsit plurima carmina quae italice dicimus "intima" de rebus tam communibus tam privatis cum imperio stare. Legimus quoque aliquas paginas viri docti Antonio La Penna (Orazio e l'ideologia del principato) quoniam discipuli posuerunt mihi gravem quaestionem quae non solum ad Historiam sed etiam ad iudicium moralem eorum pertinebat: quidnam Horatius composuerit civilia carmina et adularetur potentes, cum esset "Epicuri de grege porcus". Interim de catullo dixeramus, de sua opinione ad artem poeticam spectantem... Haec et alia de rebus gestis, de more immutato Romanorum, de artis poeticae immutationibus Catulli et Horatii impulsu dixeramus. Nos quoque, saepissime fortunam nostrorum auctorum apud poetas barbaros nostros consideravimus (apud Ugo Foscolo Catullus, apud Petrarca Horatius, apud Torquato Tasso, iam Lucretius, ex. causa)... et quomodo a Callimacho et aliis Alexandinis poetis nascantur poeticae principia et Catulli et Horatii. Hodie ad Vergilium pervenimus, in itinere aliqua Vergilii consideraveramus (Bucolicas ex. gratia, verba quibus liber primus Aeneidos incipit, amicitiam cum Horatio...). Sed, tamquam nihil dictum esset, renovavi memoriae discipulorum constitutionem dominationis Augusti et iis dixi ante omnia rem tam notam sed plane notae dignissimam: per quingentos annos Romanos in Re publica vixisse, nec facile ad principis potestatem transituros. Dein principia generalia historiae iis commemoravi: qua via dominatores potestatis propriae perficiant eam quam italice "legittimazione" vocamus, per religionem, id est, per architecturam, per picturam et alias huiuscemodi artes, per historiam (quoniam omnis dominium radices suas in historia credit inveniri), per poetarum artem in qua compendium omnium de quibus diximus stat. Et de Augusto bene notavimus nomen idem ad religionem pertinere (conlato graeco vocabulo ''Sebastòs'), dein diximus de Ara Pacis deque aliis monumentis ab Augusto structis seu renovatis; inde de usu grammaticae et Antiquitatum (Augustus ultor Caesaris, Iuliae gentis nomen ab Ilio trahi - scil. secundum Romanam traditionem virorum antiquitatibus doctorum (Varronis rationem et viam commemoravi, ut bene comprehenderent discipuli quomodo posset mentiri antiqua etymologia). Inde discipulos ut legerent italice (versa a Luca Canali viro docto nostro) invitavi librum primum Aeneidos totum et ut in legendo ut lineam sub verbis quae ad haec spectent ducerent). Sed antea indicavi iis quale primum nostrum iter sit futurum: "Tempi brevi e tempi lunghi della propaganda nell'Eneide". Volo ut videant discipuli mei haec: I) duo extare tempora laudationis Augusti potestatis (breve quod ad Augustum recta via pertinet: ex. gratia vide Aen. I, 267,ss. At puer Ascanius...); longum quod ad officium civium Romanorum spectat - secundum traditionem Romanorum et Augusti iussa; II) et haec pertinere non ad res tantum gestas sed ad historiae poe ticae artis. Quaestio non parva est quam posuerunt discipuli mei: utrum sit Aeneis opera adulatoris an genuina et respondens voluntati liberae poetae. Versus I,267ss. inter alios legentur cras Latine et notabitur in iis usus etymologiae (Ascanius- Iulus- gens Iulia...), postea, in eodem itinere, ad librum transibimus VI, ergo ad VIII, etc. Eadem erit ratio: discipuli praelectiones meas audient de variis quaestionibus in iis libris positis ab "Altertumsvissanschaft", inde legent Italice toum librum; ergo mecum Latine versus magis pertinentes ad iter nostrum. Uno mense hoc iter perfectum erit et ad secundum transibimus, ut scrutemur cohaerentiam Aeneidos cum principiis artis poetica
Re: VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation
On Virgil and Tolkien: what can be said has now been said. Back, then, to the original question, of how to teach the Aeneid in translation. Do you give the history all at once, before starting the poem, or do you let it dribble out as needed? I confess to being a dribbler, but as I have mentioned earlier, I don't think I have been teaching the poem very effectively. --- David Wilson-Okamurahttp://virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c --- --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
