Proposal for a volume to appear in the series

ÒRoman Literature and its ContextsÓ

Working title: ÒLatin Language and Latin CultureÓ
Joseph Farrell, University of Pennsylvania

Introduction

The subject of the book is the Latin language as a context for literature. By this I do not mean the linguistic or aesthetic properties of the language so much as the characteristics that have been and are imputed to it as a cultural artifact in its own right (e.g. that it is a ÒlearnedÓ language, that it is difficult to acquire and use properly, that it is nevertheless not so ÒrichÓ a language as, especially, Greek, that is seen alternately as a pagan and as an ecclesiastical language, that it has generally been taken to be the province of men, not of women, etc.). My intent is to explore the ways in which the tendency of readers to impute these qualities to the language affects their understanding of Latin literature.

This proposal consists of a complete preliminary draft of Chapter 1, tentatively entitled ÒThe Nature of Latin CultureÓ, and a short outline of the rest of the book as I currently envision it. (Of the subsequent chapters a quantity of text perhaps equivalent to the first chapter already exists, but it is in rather rough condition, not yet ready to be seen.) Chapter 1 is intended both to suggest the range of topics I will address in the book and to give an idea of my working method. I stress the continuity of Latin culture from antiquity down to the present day, though not in the way this is usually done. The argument develops through alternate passages of rather large-scale cultural critique and close readings of various texts of all sorts from different periods.

Outline

  1. The Nature of Latin Culture

    The Latin language as a cultural artifact; as the embodiment of Latin culture; pervasiveness of bilingualism; the construction of ÒnatureÓ in Latin culture (grammar, paternity, citizenship) and its compromised status; conclusions bearing upon ÒrightsÓ of membership in Latin culture

      Principal texts discussed:

      • Vergil, Aeneid 12.823Ð36
      • Martial, liber Spectaculorum 3
      • Venantius Fortunatus, Carm. 2.2, 2.6, 6.2, 9.1
      • Dante, De vulgari eloquentia 1
      • Charisius, Ars grammatica praef., 1.16Ð17 (pp. 62Ð63B)
      • Cicero, De legibus 2.1(1)Ð3(7)

  2. The Poverty of Our Ancestral Speech

    The elationship of Latin to Greek as cultural languages in ancient times; the study of Latin as compared with the study of Greek in the medieval and modern world.

    Principal texts discussed (eg):

    • Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 1.20, 3.1, 10.32 etc.
    • Writers peri hellenismou and de latinitate
    • Quintilian, IO 10
    • J. C. Scaliger, Poetices libri VII
    • W. B. Yeats, Explorations
    • Virginia Woolf, JacobÕs Room, ÒOn Not Knowing GreekÓ; ÒThe Perfect LanguageÓ; ÒMiss CaseÓ
    • I. F. Stone, ÒOn Learning Greek at Age SeventyÓ

    3. The Life-Cycle of Dead Languages

    Constructions of literary history (ancient, medieval, and contemporary models); periodicity; the idea of a ÒdeadÓ language; comparison of modern Latin linguistic culture with various twentieth-century linguistic and cultural movements (Zionism and the revival of Hebrew; Turkish claims concerning Hittite; Irish, Welsh, and Scottish nationalism; Swahili; the translation and transliteration of Chinese; Esperanto; Nostratics); uses of Latin in the contemporary world

    Principal texts discussed (eg):

    • Cicero, Brutus
    • Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus
    • Medieval accessus literature
    • J. N. Funck, De origine, de pueritia, de adolescentia, de virili aetate, de imminenti/vegeta/inerti ac decrepita Latinae linguae senectute commentarii (1720Ð50)
    • Stravinsky/Cocteau/Danielou, Oedipus Rex (1949)
    • Latinitas [periodical] ex Urbe Vaticana, 1953Ð
    • Finnish radio broadcasts

    4. The Gender of Latin

    Learning Latin as a traditionally masculine pursuit; the role of women in Latin linguistic culture in different periods; the relationship between gender and periodicity; the idea of a ÒfeminineÓ latinity in general.

    Principal texts discussed (eg):

    • ?Cornelia Gracchi, Epistula ad C. filium (apud Cornelium Nepotem)
    • Ovid, Heroides
    • The two Sulpicias, Carmina
    • Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis
    • Dhuoda, Liber manualis
    • Baudri of Bourgueil and Constance, Epistulae
    • Abelard and Heloise, Epistulae

    5. The Voices of Latin Culture

    Polyphony as a characteristic mode of expression in Latin literature; translation and linguistic indeterminacy as themes and expressive resources characteristic of Latin literature.

    Principal texts discussed (eg):

    • Carmen Arvale
    • Apuleius, Metamorphoses
    • Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phryx, De bello Troiano
    • Optatian Porphyry, Carmina
    • Biblia Vulgata, Acts 2:1Ð12
    • Thomas Tallis, "Loquebantur variis linguis"

    NB: With regard to the stipulation that books appearing in this series be Òlightly annotatedÓ, I have gone a bit farther than previous contributors by excluding footnotes altogether. Instead, I plan to provide a Òlightly annotatedÓ bibliography to appear at the end of the volume, organized by chapters and directing the reader to fuller discussions of points that I will have made. I have included a sample of what I have in mind with my draft of Chapter 1.