syllabus

Set Texts in the original for the Latin Language Option 2024-2025

Term 1

Text 1:Plautus, Poenulus 1-128, 949-1173
** Please read the whole of the Poenulus in English

Recommended Edition:
W. De Melo (2012) Plautus, The Little Carthaginian. Pseudolous. The Rope, Cambridge Mass.: Loeb Classical Library. [available as e-book]

Text 2: Virgil, Aeneid 1.335-756
** Please read the whole of Aeneid Books 1 and 4 in English

Recommended Edition:
R. G. Austin (1971) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Alternative Edition:
Maclennan, K. (2010) Virgil Aeneid I, London: Bristol Classical Press.

Term 2

Text 3: Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum 1-19; 78-79

Recommended Editions:

Paul, G.M. A Historical Commentary on Sallust's Bellum Jugurthinum

Text 4: Lucan, Bellum Ciuile 4.582-798; 9.294-954

Recommended Editions:

Asso, P. (2010) A Commentary on Lucan, De bello civili IV, Berlin: De Gruyter.

Classical Texts in Translation (use Loeb Editions if possible)

Autumn Term

Homer Iliad 1.423-4, 6.288-95, 23.205-7, 740-8; Odyssey 1.22-26; 4.83-9, 125-32, 219-232, 347-592; 5.282-7 [Ethiopians]; 11.522 [Memnon]; 13.271-86 [Phoenicians]; 15.403-83 [Phoenicians]
Herodotus 2.1-4, 29-30, 35-36, 54-57, 99-100, 102-120, 137, 139 [optional to read the whole of Book 2]; 3.17-25, 4.147-164, 183; 7.70.
Euripides Helen
Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women
Pindar Pythian 4, 5 and 9
Plautus The Little Carthaginian
Aristotle, Politics 1272b24-1273b24
Sallust The Jugurthine War 1-19, 41, 44, 46, 78-81, 89-91, 101, 108, 113-4.
Livy History of Rome Book 21.1-44 and 30.3-15, 28-37.
Virgil Aeneid 1 and 4
Horace Epodes 7, 9 and 16; Odes 1.37, 2.1, 3.3, 4.4
Lucan Civil War 4.582-824; 8.456-872; 9.294-949; 10.
[optional] Silius Italicus Punica, selections
[optional] Petrarch Africa

Spring Term

Callimachus Hymn to Zeus, Hymn to Apollo, Hymn to Delos,Coma Berenices (fr. 110 Pf)
Theocritus Idyll 15, 17
Apollonius Argonautica 3.200-249 (Arrival in Colchis), 275-298 (Medea in love), 442-471 (Medea in love), 828-911 (Medea goes to the temple of Hecate/Medea the witch), 948-1145 (first encounter between Medea and Jason); Argonautica 4.118-182 (Medea and Jason steal the Fleece), 214-240 (description of the Colchians), 259-281 (ancient stories from Egypt), 355-393 (Medea’s rage), 452-482 (death of Apsyrtus), 1225-1619 (Libya: 1225-1386 Desert; 1387-1484 Hesperides; 1537-1619 Triton gives the clod of earth), 1731-1764 (dream of Euphemus).
Catullus Carmen 66
Apuleius Metamorphoses Books 1 and 11, Apologia
Augustine, Confessions, City of God, selections
[optional] Heliodorus Aithiopica

English Texts

* Morrison, Toni (1987) Beloved
Morrison, Toni (1988) 'Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in Classical Literature'
[optional] Morrison, Toni (1977) Song of Solomon
Morrison, Toni [selections from Paradise (1997) and Jazz (1992)]
*Ellison, Ralph (1952) Invisible Man
Ellison, Ralph [1958] (1995) “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” in John F. Callahan (ed.) The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison. The Modern Library: 100-12.
*Walcott, Derek (1990) Omeros
W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) The Souls of Black Folk, chapters 4 (Of the Meaning of Progress) and 5 (Of the Wings of Atalanta)
W. E. B. Du Bois (unpublished) De Senectute available here: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b159-i391 to be read together with Cicero's De Senectute
[optional] Wheatley, Phillis (1773) Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
[optional] Cullen, Countee (1925) Color, especially Yet Do I Marvel
[optional] Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1895) 'We Wear the Mask', in Majors and Minors. Hadley and Hadley Publishers; free version accessible here: https://archive.org/details/majorsandminorsp00dunbrich
[optional] Hopkins, Pauline
[optional] Reed, Ishmael (1972) Mumbo Jumbo
[optional] Padilla Peralta, D. (2015) Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League