Latin 001 -- Section 302
Elementary Latin 1
Why the picture?
Fall 1995
University of Pennsylvania
Course Description | Class Meetings |
Schedule | Office Hours | Grading Policy | Attendance Policy | On-Line Resources | Internet Links | Contacting Your Instructor
Course Description
The course is designed to give the beginning student a comprehensive
introduction to the grammar and vocabulary of the Latin Language. Latin
is a language for which we have a continuous written record from the few
stone inscriptions in Latin from the sixth century BC to those
smatterings of Latin that are still being composed today. This course is
geared towards teaching the student to read the style of Latin current
among the most literate members of Roman society of the period of the
beginning of the first century BC through the second century AD -- the
Latin of such Roman authors as Cicero, Caesar, Catullus, Vergil, Horace,
Quintilian, Juvenal and Apuleius, to name a few. At the same time,
however, the course will provide a solid foundation for study of latinity
of all periods and styles, including the Latin of late antiquity, and
medieval, ecclesiastical and scientific Latin.
The course is divided into two semesters. At the end of the first
semester you will have gained a mastery of most of the Latin forms and
will have learned enough of Latin syntax to begin to translate complex
sentences. In addition you will be well on your way to the possession of
a base Latin vocabulary for reading. At the end of the first semester we
will translate some relatively easy passages of real Latin from both the
Classical and Medieval periods. Should you choose to continue with your
study of Latin, at the end of the second semester you will spend a number
of weeks reading Latin texts of considerable difficulty and the highest
quality. Concentrate on these worthy goals, but also enjoy the process of
attaining them for the many challenges you will overcome along the way. A
language itself, apart form its literature, is a fascinating thing to
encounter.
The text we will use is Moreland, Floyd R., and Rita Fleischer.
Latin: An Intensive Course. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1990.
Class Meetings
The class will meet each Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from
11:00 am to 12:00 pm in Towne 315.
Schedule
Below you will find a schedule of events for the coming semester. At
present it spans only two weeks but will soon be complete.
WEEK 1 (Sept. 4-6)
- Sept. 4: Introduction to the course. The alphabet and Latin
phonology. Overview of Latin word order.
- Sept. 5: Overview of the verbal system (Unit 1A-D)
- Sept. 6: The Morphology of the Present Indicative Active System of
the first two declensions (Unit 1E&F).
WEEK 2 (Sept. 9-13)
- Sept. 9: QUIZ (on the verb). Verb drills. The irregular verb
sum (Unit 1G).
- Sept. 11: The first declension noun (Unit 1H&I).
- Sept. 12: QUIZ (on unit one vocabulary). Translation exercises.
- Sept. 13: Review of Unit 1.
WEEK 3 (Sept. 16-20)
- Sept. 16: QUIZ (Unit 1). Perfect Indicative (Unit 2A).
- Sept. 18: QUIZ (Vocabulary Unit 2). Review and Drill.
- Sept. 19: Subjunctive and Conditional Sentences (Unit 2B-E).
- Sept. 20: Subjunctive and Conditional Sentences (Unit 2B-E). Genitive
of Charge (Unit 2F).
WEEK 4 (Sept. 23-27)
- Sept. 23: QUIZ (Unit 2). Second declension nouns, Three-ending
adjectives, Ablative of means/manner (Unit 3A-F).
- Sept. 25: QUIZ (Vocabulary Unit 3). Review and Drill.
- Sept. 26: Purpose Clauses, Sequence of Tenses (Unit 3G).
- Sept. 27: Review and Drill.
Office Hours
I will hold office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-3pm in Williams
713 (7th floor west).
Grading Policy
Work assigned over the course of the semester will include a final exam,
two one-hour exams, regularly administered 10 min. quizzes (at least two
per unit), and homework assignments that I will collect as I see fit. It
goes without saying that you will be expected to attend and participate
fully in all classes. Your final grade in the course will be calculated
according to the following scheme:
Final Exam: 20%
One-Hour Exams: 40% (20% each)
Quizzes 30%
HW and Participation: 10%
Attendance Policy
While it goes without saying that you will be expected to attend and
participate fully in all classes, I understand that on the rare occasion
some deplorable act of Fortune may make it impossible for you come to
class. For this reason you are allotted two excused absences over the
course of the semester. An excused absence means that you are not
penalized for the day you missed, but that it is your responsibility to
schedule promptly a time to make-up missed work. All other
absences will be considered unexcused, which means your participation
grade will suffer and no credit will be awarded for missed work.
On-Line Resources
Keep an eye on this space. As the semester progresses this is where I
will attach on-line study aids and other miscellany. Soon to come will be
a regularly updated list of vocabulary words from Moreland and Fleischer,
organized according to parts of speech.
Internet Links
Here are some resources culled form the WWW of special interest, I hope,
to beginning students of Latin. Please take time to explore!
- Allen and
Greenaugh's New Latin Grammar: "New" here is perhaps a
misnomer: the book was first published in its final form in 1903. It
remains, however, the most frequently cited comprehensive grammar of the
Latin language available in English. This is the reference work you will
eventually use as you continue to hone your mastery of Latin grammar.
Some may find it useful early on as a supplement to the information
provided in our textbook.
- Lynn H. Nelson's Latin Grammar aid: "This grammar reference list presently contains two sections: examples of
translations for the various uses of several noun cases, and the endings
for regular nouns, adjectives, active verbs, and present participles." If
you like lists, this is for you!
- Here is a list of "little hard words," prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions which some find difficult to tell apart. Perhaps referring to this list will help you keep them straight.
- Verba
Cloacae, a list of prurient Latin vocabulary. For spicing up the
occasional exercise in Latin composition.
- Aesop's
Fables are Greek animal stories from the sixth century BC. They both
served as "fairy tales" for the ancient Greeks and informed the stylized
lyric poetry of Pindar and the prose history of Herodotus, the earliest
work of its kind to survive from the ancient world. The popularity of
Aesop's fables caused them to be selected as reading texts for young
Greek and Latin grammar students, and, like much of what we possess of
ancient literature, it is as a result of their inclusion in the
curriculum of the grammar schools that these stories have been preserved
to the present day. The text linked above, a Latin translation of the
original Greek, was composed in the late twelfth century AD, and used in
schools throughout Europe well into the sixteenth century. At the
conclusion of the semester we will attempt an English translation of our
own of a selection of these fables, but there is nothing to prevent you
from having a crack at them before then on your own.
- Diotima is
a site developed by Ross Scaife and Suzanne Bonefas. It contains
materials (course syllabi, essays, reviews, bibliographies, etc.) for the
study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World.
- The Rome
Project is a good place to begin to explore various aspects of
latinity on the World Wide Web.
Keep an eye out for more links as the semester
progresses
Contacting Your Instructor
I encourage students to contact me via email at awiesner@ccat.sas.upenn.edu.
I check my email frequently and you can count on a timely reply. In cases
of emergency you may also call me at home: (215) 476-3822.
Why This Picture?
The picture shows a gemstone carved in the image of the Sphinx, the
mythological creature, part woman, part bird-of-prey, part lion, that
besieged the ancient Greek city of Thebes, forcing all passers-by to try
to solve the following riddle:
Tell me, what animal is that
Which has four feet at morning bright,
has two at noon, and three at night?
Many failed and were therefore unceremoniously devoured by the beast,
until young Oedipus arrived and hit upon the solution: The animal is man,
described in his different stages of life. With the riddle solved, the
city was freed from Sphinx's threat. Unfortunately, Oedipus would solve
the riddle of his own life only too late: Upon returning to Thebes he was
crowned king and wedded unwittingly his mother Jocasta. When he
eventually discovers the truth of the incestuous union, Oedipus blinds
himself and enters into the life of the exile. The most famous rendition
of the story can be found in Sophocles' play, Oedipus the King.
The curious feature of the Sphinx depicted on this gemstone is the scroll
from which it recites the riddle. The image dates from the fifth century
BC, the century during which the ancients begin to depend more and more
on writing as the medium for recording and transmitting the stories they
tell about themselves. From that time forward, an understanding of the
written language of the ancient Greeks and Romans has provided the
necessary key to the discovery of their ways of life. I find the image of
the reading sphinx an appropriate emblem for our task as we take up the
ancient language of the Romans and try our hands at solving the riddles
they present to us, the distant inhabitants of the twentieth century, in
the written records they have left behind. The story of Oedipus,
finally, can serve as a potent warning that our investigation into the
ancient world must also at the same time involve an effort to understand
truths about ourselves.
