David: I was one of those history-challenged high school, and then college, Virgil students and I vote for the all-at-once. After college, I read Syme's Roman Revolution and Scullard's From the Gracchi to Nero, and they opened up whole new dimensions in the text of the Aeneid for me. Of course, Syme isn't something you can speed through as a quick read, though. Even a 25-page down-and-dirty summary of the history, however, would add greatly to the richness of the experience. In Latin the poetry can hypnotize without assistance; a translation may need a background of political tensions to create the same kind of excitement as the Odyssey creates. Once one understands the political environment, the Aeneid can be as interesting for what it does not say as for what it does say: an exercise in subtlety and obliqueness. Subtlety is not the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the Odyssey; they are useful counterpoints in this regard.
- Oliver Metzger ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Wilson-Okamura" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 10:12 AM Subject: 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-Okamura http://virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] > East Carolina University Virgil 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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