LATIN LITERATURE

The course of LATIN LITERATURE is a training activity of the study plan of the Bachelor's Degree in "Humanities": it is among the "Core educational activities" of the curriculum "Antiquities" and among the "Interdisciplinary" activities of the curriculum "Science of the literary text and communication". It represents a more advanced step in the didactic path concerning the Latin language and literature, after the course of LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (FT0435), whose examination is presupposed as a requirement for access.
The course is part of the educational activities intended to provide students with a general knowledge of the languages and literatures of classical antiquity and proposes a more in-depth approach to the Latin literature through the reading, translation, interpretation and historical and literary analysis of a work or a significant sample of texts in the original language. The aim of the course is to enrich and refine the knowledge of the Latin language and literature, and at the same time to put students in contact with the critical problems and current methodologies of historical-literary research and interpretation of texts, with the scientific bibiliography and critical tools of literary and philological research, also as pertains the knowledge and use of the main IT tools.

The outcome of this didactic activity is the knowledge of a work or a selection of latin literary texts in the original language and of their main historical and interpretative problems. Students should then be able to read, understand, translate into Italian and comment on the historical-literary and stylistic plan the text or texts treated by the teacher during the course, and to discuss on them in light of the proposed explanation and the bibliography.
Already equipped with linguistic skills at least intermediate level, students should also acquire through the course a greater familiarity with the Latin literary language, a broader set of linguistic knowledge and a more secure ability to translate from Latin into Italian; at the same time, the study of the bibliography should refine their knowledge of categories, concepts and critical vocabulary of philological and historical-literary research in Latin and (more widely) humanistic fields, and their ability to display and discuss matters and problems of literary history.

The exam of LATIN LITERATURE requires a general knowledge of the history of Latin language and literature and a linguistic competence of Latin at least intermediate level.
Students who want to take the exam must have already taken the exam of LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (FT0435) or have already acquired 9/12 credits of Latin Language and Literature (L-FIL-LET/04).
To access the exam students must also certify their knowledge of Latin language by passing the Test of Latin 2 (http://www.unive.it/data/insegnamento/263176 ).

The calm after the civil storm: a 'political' reading of Horace's lyric poetry.
Published in 23 B.C., the year of the final sanction of Augustus' principate, Books I-III of the "Odes" are the poetic record from the existential and historical experience of an intellectual immersed in the stormy 20 years of the "Roman Revolution". Combining the metrical and expressive forms of Greek lyric poetry with Hellenistic philosophical culture and Roman ethical and religious sensibilities, Horace weaves in a rigorously modern Latin a lyrical discourse that on the one hand closes and pacifies the story of his youth, passed through civil war on the defeated side and the compromises of the Augustan restoration, and on the other celebrates the 'making' of the Principate, its protagonists (the princeps and the members of the ruling aristocracy) and the hopes invested by the now mature poet in the stability and promises of peace of the new political path. The course offers an itinerary of annotated readings through Books I-III of Horace's "Carmina," chosen from this specific angle of view.

1) Notes from the lessons.
2) A. LA PENNA, Orazio e la morale mondana europea, Firenze 1969 = Saggi e studi su Orazio, Firenze 1993, pp. 1-232.
3) M. CITRONI, Da una letteratura per pochi a una letteratura nazionale: Virgilio, Orazio e il pubblico augusteo, in: Poesia e lettori in Roma antica: forme della comunicazione letteraria, Roma 1995, cap. V, pp. 207-269.

Non-attending students will agree with the teacher on the list of Horatian Odes to be read in the original language, and will add to nos. 2) and 3) the reading Chapter V of E. FRAENKEL, Horace, Oxford 1957 ( it. ed. Rome 1993) and Chapter VI of the aforementioned book by M. CITRONI (I piani di destinazione della lirica di Orazio, pp. 272-374).

Learning is verified through an oral interview in which the students must demonstrate to be able to read, understand, translate into Italian and comment on the stylistic and historical-literary level some passages of the work or selection of texts which has been read by the teacher or assigned as personal reading; students must also be able to discuss the bibliography and to use it in the interpretation of texts.

Frontal lessons, mainly based on reading, translation, and linguistic, stylistic, historical-literary commentary of the work or selection of texts treated during the course. The use of some computer aids (lexicons and online databases, specialized sites, etc.) to support the explanation is intended to offer students an overview of the main IT scientific tools currently available for philological research on ancient Latin literature.

Italian

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