Introductory description

N/A

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

In this module, which will take the form of a weekly seminar, we will focus on the detailed
reading, discussion and interpretation of two main texts or sections of classical Latin texts, one in
verse and one in prose (e.g. Virgil’s Eclogues, Seneca’s de Clementia), alongside an anthology of
further related texts, commentaries and reference works. Latin texts will be chosen on a yearly
basis in response to current critical debates and the most recent and original scholarship. Each two-
hour session will be devoted to a section of text (students will be asked to prepare in advance by
reading the text together with selected scholarship) and take the form of in-depth critical discussion
following prepared oral presentations. Students will be able to significantly enhance the knowledge
and skills acquired at undergraduate level, exchanging and developing ideas and reading strategies
in a supportive and stimulating environment.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• acquired the ability to read classical literary Latin fluently and independently, in a range of genres and forms;
• developed the ability to employ a variety of strategies and techniques of interpretation and philological analysis in their close reading of classical texts;
• acquired the knowledge and skills required to respond critically to the most advanced classical scholarship;
• developed into autonomous researchers with the skills and expertise required to produce professionally laid-out papers, develop extended scholarly arguments, and give confident, well-organised and fluent presentations.

Indicative reading list

The following is a sample of bibliography on Virgil’s Eclogues and Seneca’s De Clementia.

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro). 1977. Eclogues. Edited by Robert Coleman. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro). 1994. A commentary on Virgil’s Eclogues. Edited by Wendell
Vernon Clausen. Oxford: Clarendon.
Alpers, Paul. 1996. What is Pastoral? Chicago and London.
Berg, William. 1974. Early Virgil. London: Athlone.
Breed, B.W. 2006. Pastoral Inscriptions: Reading and Writing Virgil's Eclogues. London.
Courtney, E. 1981. "The Formation of the Text of Vergil." Bulletin of the Institute of Classical
Studies 28 (1981): 13-29.
Cucchirelli, A. 2011. ‘Ivy and Laurel: Divine modes in Virgil’s Eclogues’ HSCP 106: 155-78.
Fantuzzi, Marco, and R. L. Hunter. 2004. Tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Fantuzzi, Marco, and Theodore D. Papanghelis, eds. 2006. Brill’s companion to Greek and Latin
pastoral. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Habinek, Thomas N. 2005. The world of Roman song from ritualized speech to social order.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. Hardie, Philip R., ed. 1999. Virgil: Critical assessment of ancient authors. 4 vols. New York: Routledge. Horsfall, Nicholas. 1995. A companion to the study of Virgil. Mnemosyne Supplement 151. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Jones, Frederick. 2011. Virgil's Garden. The nature of bucolic space. London: Bristol Classical Press. Karakasis, Evangelos. 2011. Song Exchange in Roman Pastoral. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter,(Trends in Classics Suppl. 5). Leach, Eleanor Winsor. 1974. Vergil’s Eclogues: Landscapes of experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press. Papanghelis, Theodore D. 1999. ‘Eros pastoral and profane: On love in Virgil’s Eclogues.’ In Amor, Roma: Love and Latin literature. Edited by R. Mayer and S. J. Braund, 44–59. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Philological Society Putnam, M.C.J. 1970. Virgil’s pastoral art: studies in the Eclogues. Princeton. Reynolds, L. D., ed. 1986. Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics. 1983. Rev. Oxford: Clarendon. Rudd, R.1976. Lines of enquiry: studies in Latin poetry (Cambridge, 1976), ch. 5. Saunders, T. (2008) Bucolic Ecology: Virgil’s Eclogues and the Environmental Literary Tradition. London: Duckworth. Segal, Charles. 1981. 'Tamen cantabitis, Arcades: exile and Arcadia in Eclogues 1 and 9', in Segal, Poetry and myth in ancient pastoral (Princeton, 1981) 271-300. Tarrant, R. J. "Aspects of Virgil's Reception in Antiquity." The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Ed. Charles Martindale. Cambridge: CUP, 1997. 56-72. Volk, K. 2008.Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Vergil's Eclogues. Oxford. Zetzel, James E. G. Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity. Monographs in Classical Studies. Salem, NH: Ayer, 1981. Ziolkowski, Jan M., and Michael C. J. Putnam, eds. 2008. The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years. New Haven: Yale UP. * The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2010. Braund, S., ed. and trans. 2009. Seneca: De clementia. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Bartsch, Shadi, and Alessandro Schiesaro, eds. 2015. Cambridge Companion to Seneca. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press Bartsch, Shadi, and David Wray, eds. 2009. Seneca and the self. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. Damschen, Gregor, and Andreas Heil, eds. 2014. Brill’s companion to Seneca. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Griffin, Miriam. 2003. ‘Clementia after Caesar: From politics to philosophy.’ In Caesar against liberty? Perspectives on his autocracy. Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 11. Edited by Francis Cairns and Elaine Fantham, 157–182. Cambridge, UK Inwood, Brad. 1995. ‘Seneca in his philosophical milieu.’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 97:63–76. Ker, James. 2006. ‘Seneca, man of many genres.’ In Seeing Seneca whole: Perspectives on philosophy, poetry, and politics. Ed. Katharina Volk and Gareth D. Williams, 19–41. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Leach, Eleanor Winsor. 2008. ‘The implied reader and the political argument in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and De Clementia.’ In Seneca. Ed. John Fitch, 264–298. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Malaspina, Ermanno, ed. 2005. L. Annaei Senecae De clementia libri duo: Prolegomena, testo critico e commento. 2d ed. Alessandria, Italy: Ed. dell’Orso.

Subject specific skills

By the end of this module students should expect to have:

• acquired the ability to read classical literary Latin fluently and independently, in a range of genres and forms;
• developed the ability to employ a variety of strategies and techniques of interpretation and philological analysis in their close reading of classical texts;
• acquired the knowledge and skills required to respond critically to the most advanced classical scholarship;
• developed into autonomous researchers with the skills and expertise required to produce professionally laid-out papers, develop extended scholarly arguments, and to give confident, well-organised and fluent presentations.

Transferable skills

• critical thinking
• problem solving
• active lifelong learning
• communication
• information literacy
• ICT literacy