Professor: Jacques Bailly
jacques.bailly@uvm.edu
656-0993
office hours: TBA
Goals: This course
has three goals:
Survey the history of Greek and Latin literature (in a broad
sense of "literature")
Introduce the basic tools/concepts of what has come to be
called "Classics"
Help prepare you for the Philology Comprehensive Exam
Attendance: Good idea.
You're grad students. You decide.
Changes to the Syllabus: I have no problem changing the
syllabus if you all agree, or at least no one strenuously objects.
Don't grumble to each other in silence about this course, or grouse
to my colleagues: this course is for you and I would love it if you
would take the steering wheel a bit more.
Workload and Ability: I can
custom-design your workload for you if you have ideas that make
better sense to you (and me) than what everyone else is doing. Some
of you have better Greek, some better Latin, some can read poetry,
some philosophy. While I will ask you to kill yourselves working in
this course, I want that to be merely a way of dysphemistically
describing the deep-felt satisfaction of working harder and
accomplishing more than you thought you could.
Activities:
The various Classicists and "honorary" Classicists on
faculty will come and talk to the class about their research
or a topic of their choice that they consider important for
you to know. This will not be systematic or complete: it will
be like the proverbial shotgun shot at the barn door. Think of
it as a series of very loosely connected lectures.
We will read basic histories of Greek Literature and of
Latin Literature, from tip to stern, in a systematic fashion.
A rather prosaic, almost plodding, task. You will need to
highlight or take notes or underline and learn the most
important items, because this will form a large part of the
Philology Comprehensive exam (see below under "final exam").
We will read Latin and Greek from your reading list: this is
perhaps the most basic and important (and neglected) task a
graduate student is given. This course will get you just
barely started. Think of it as "tapas" or "antipasto" for the
Classicist: you won't be reading whole texts, but just tidbits
of each author. You should be reading as much more as you can,
and you should continue to read even more in translation.
You will create worksheets for the class about things you
have investigated: we need to talk about commentaries,
articles, genres, editions, standard reference works,
subdisciplines, etc. We'll set up a round-robin of worksheets
and have some other activities to do with the following:
Genres: epic, bucolic, elegy, meter, tragedy, comedy,
lyric, didactic, letters, dialogues, medical and other
"professional" treatises, etc.
Standard Reference Works we should all know about: TLG,
P-W, Jacoby, Diels-Krantz, IG2, etc.
Reading an App Crit, paleography, textual criticism,
codicology, etc.
History of Classical Scholarship
...
We will produce an online work that will be available to the
world. I have provisionally chosen Justus Lipsius' Politica.
As far as I can tell, there is no non-facsimile edition of Politica
available on-line. The goal of this has as much to do with
making the work available to the world as it does with
thinking through what it takes to promulgate a so-called
"written work." Why neo-Latin? To expand our horizons.
In-Class and Out-Of-Class
We have lots of visitors, and on days when we have visitors,
we won't be able to conduct the normal business of the class
in-class.
Thus I have come up with a way to do it out-of-class.
The goal here is to keep each other honest about doing the
work, to keep up the conversation, to keep some modicum of
continuity in the class, and to keep our fingers on the pulse
of the class.
For Greek readings:
I have created a "Google Document" called "Greek Question
and Answer" and a "Google Group" for us.
You will be invited to join this group and contribute to
the document.
Your contribution will consist of:
at least one question every session about the syntax or
meaning of something in the Greek or Latin reading. These
are due the night before before class. Put your initials
at the end of your question.
You will answer at least one question that someone else
asked about that session's Greek of Latin reading. You may
do this at any time after the question is posted before
Jacques answers them (i.e. do it as soon as you can, while
the text is fresh in your mind). Start your answer on a
new line and put your initials after the answer.
Jacques will attempt to check answers and supply or
correct them.
For Secondary Readings:
Please write out before the end of class a quick
comment/question about what happened in class.
Please also post a paragraph + long
observation/comment/question to our shared Google document
"About The Readings" so that others may ponder what you are
pondering. Must be posted before class starts.
Feel free to comment about each others comments/questions,
but this is not required, just something to do if you care
to.
Grades: 91-100%=A, 81-90%=B, 71-80%=C, 61-70%=D, 60% or lower fails
Participation in the daily pulse of the class: 29%.
Text Production: 20%.
Final: 50%.
Attitude and work ethic: everything, plus the remaining 1%
Midterm/final, etc.: Most
students seem to want the Proseminar final to count as the Philology
Exam, but all the faculty have to unanimously agree that your
particular performance is so good that it can substitute for the
exam and that the exam itself is appropriate as a substitute (i.e. a
herd of cats have to agree) (last time this course was taught, one
student performed well enough to submit it for the faculty's
consideration: in the years before that, most of the time no one
die). In any case, this course should prepare you for the Philology
Exam or at least parts of it. Let's examine what the Philology Exam
consists of, so we are all on the same page about it. Sample
questions are given below. It is similar to the final for this
course, but beware that the specifics of our final will change to
suit what we read in this course.
Also, if any of you desperately want a non-cumulative final, we can
do a midterm, I guess, but that would make it impossible to count
the final as the philology exam.
So, here's what a philology exam might look like:
N.B. This is a representative sampling of the SORTS of questions
that might be on the philology exam: If you see 'Propertius,' but
not 'Tibullus' on it, do not assume that 'Tibullus' will not be on
it.
N.B. II This is a compilation of many years' exams (they are all
available in the filing cabinet in your office). The actual exam
will be tailored to take about 3 hours of fast writing.
You should be able to provide the basic facts about a
selection of the following, including dates, major works,
language, etc. :
Propertius
Longinus
Plotinus
Ausonius
Hipponax
Plautus
Persius (Flaccus)
Theognis
Callimachus
Lucian
Alcman
Cornelius Nepos
Polybius
Statius
Alcaeus
Quintilian
Plutarch
Ovid
Gorgias
Marcus Aurelius
Isocrates
Cato the Elder
Apuleius
Hecataeus
Pliny the Younger
Diogenes Laertius
Briefly identify the following:
Arctinus of Miletus
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Aristoxenus of Tarentum
Claudius Claudianus
Posidonius
Lucilius
Varius and Tucca
Eupolis
Maecenas
Titus Pomponius Atticus
Identify the following:
Any modern editor of Lucretius
A 4th century commentator on Vergil
ditto for Terence
A modern anthologist of medieval Latin
A twentieth century editor of Juvenal
A notorious forger of a classical author.
A particular palimpsest
A third century commentator of Horace.
the author of a comparative Greek and Latin grammar
the name and editor of any compilation of Greek fragments.
Short Answers: You should be able to write a few fact-filled
or intelligent-thought-filled sentences on things like the
following:
lectio difficilior
stemma
neoterics
scholia
Saturnians
testimonium/a
fragmentum/a
uncial
choregos
satura
digamma
asterisk
suidas
Diels-Kranz
The Greek Anthology
Ath. Pol.
Gnomon
JHS
OCT
TLG
TLL
P-W
CIL
Sandys
ATL
IG2
Marouzeau
Nauck
You should be able to do the following:
Name the main Greek
(literary) dialects, list a few of their characteristic
features (phonetic/orthographic) which distinguish them one
from another, and give the name, genre, and century of an
author who wrote in each.
Explain the following note in R.A.B. Mynor’s apparatus
criticus to Vergil, Ecloga
IV.62: The line reads incipe,
parue puer: qui non ridere parenti, and the note reads:
62 qui Quint. ix 3.8 :
cui PRw, Seru., Quintiliani
codd. (corr.
Politianus)parenti
Schrader :
parentes codd.
Give an account of the various elements which contribute to
the improvement of the text of any author you have studied;
include if you can recall it the MSS situation; try to
associate names of modern scholars and editions; mention the
use of parallels, ancient and modern scholarship, anything
that helps the text.
List (with date as near as you can come to it and editor) a
principal edition of: Terence, Catullus, Plautus, Petronius,
Juvenal, Aeschylus, Lysias, Epicurus, Euripides, Greek Lyric
Poetry, Aristophanes, Propertius (pick 8).
Briefly outline how you would go about working up a
bibliography of a learned topic (name the major reference
tools you would use).
Identify by era, general area of subject interest, and one
book title:
Julius Caesar Scaliger, Richard Bentley, Bishop Ussher,
theodor Mommsen, guillaume Bude, Arnold Momigliano, Ulrich
von Wilamovitz-Moellendorf, George Grote, August Bloch,
Gilbert Murray, Milman Parry, Jacob Grimm, Denys L. Page,
Sir. Wm.James, Gottfried Hermann, Karl Lachmann, P.J. Enk,
Thomas Gaisford, Emil Baehrens, Guglielmus Budaeus, Rasmus
Rask, Alfred Ernout, A. E. Housman, Medea Norsa, Janus
Dousa, Henri Etienne, K.O Mueller, Augustus Boeckh, F.A.
Wolf, R. C. Jebb, T.B.L Webster.
Give a brief account of the text-problem of any author you
have studied (or group of authors: e.g. Lyric) either from the
point o view of the MSS or from that of modern editions.
List five authors each, Latin and Greek, and the principal
editions, commentaries, and other scholarly aids for the study
of each (publication dates would be nice too).
Explain briefly what modern phonological study has done to
improve our understanding of Latin. Give some illustration of
where it has helped in the establishment of text.
You should be able to write an intelligent exam essay on two
topics such as the following:
What is
philology? What are its aims and methods? its advantages?
its limitations? What disciplines does it comprise? How has
it been understood and practiced in the past? How is it
understood and practiced today? What, do you think, is its
future?
Discuss the significance
of the so-called “Homeric Question.” Why did it arise in the
first place? What have been the main responses to it? Who
are some of the scholars, ancient and modern, associated
with those responses? What’s at stake in their answers?
Discuss the
appropriation of Greek literary forms by Latin authors. Who
are some of the seminal figures and what are the key periods
of activity? What historical and cultural pressures
encouraged Latin literature to develop along Greek lines?
Once you have provided some context and background by
addressing those questions, focus on one particular work and
discuss what in it is owed to a Greek model and what remains
characteristically Roman in the author’s treatment.
Discuss the development
of Greek prose, from the earliest beginnings until the
beginning of the Christian era. Who are some of the major
figures? What are some of the stylistic trends? To what
varied use was Greek prose put over the centuries?
The Aeneid
and its Greek and Latin sources (45 minutes)
What were they (10 min.)
What was their character and importance? (20 min.)
How does Vergil use them? (15 min.)
Write a comprehensive study of Greek and Latin lyric poetry
in which you include at least three Greek and two Latin
authors.
Trace the use of two of the following themes in such various
literary genres as epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric, oratory,
history, and satire:
golden age, conjugal love, wandering, animals,
transformation and change, evidence/debate/proof, chthonic
deities and the underworld, condemnation and invective,
building of civilization
List the extant works of X, give some account of the
date of each, and how we know it.
Comment on the style of any appropriate pair of Greek/Roman
authors (Excluding Homer and Vergil): for example,
Thucydides/Sallust (or Tacitus), Isocrates/Cicero,
Horace/Greek Melic poets, Theocritus/Virgil (Eclogues).
Using three ancient authors (at least one Greek and one
Roman) write an essay on the relationship between literature
and art/architecture.
What is the nature of oral poetry?
Outline the key authors, figures, works, and tenets of
Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism.
Write a comparative essay on the treatment in classical
literature of two of the following:
Helen, Clytaemnestra, Jason, Aeneas, Io
Compare and Contrast the character and function of the Greek
tragic and comic chorus.
Name two major works of Latin literature which are lost or
survive in only fragmentary form. What was their nature and
what major questions would their existence help to solve?
ditto for Greek literature.
Write a concise literary history of the first century CE.