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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