VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 12:18 PM 1/1/2004 -0500, david connor wrote:
>>>>
Is my high school Latin so weak that I fail to understand why Vincenzo Crupi is "leaving the list"? Videtur mihi eum permanere velit!
<<<<

Of course. Am guessing that Crupi decided to send his message to the group by replying to an old one, without changing the subject header (which I am doing now).

Except for Patrick Roper's news about the newly discovered opera, we have been silent for a long time. I apologize for this -- I always mean to throw out a question, and then I never do. Something I have been thinking about, though, for some time, is how I can teach the Aeneid more effectively.

This is a poem that I know rather well, and I have been writing about the reception of the Aeneid for several years. Over the course of the last five years, I have taught the poem four times, and will do so again in about a month. I confess, however, that I am consistently dissatisfied with what happens when I bring this book into the classroom. Lately I have been teaching the poem in translation, alongside of the Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Lord of the Rings. The Aeneid is the second book we read, and it always feels like a struggle.

Part of the problem, I have come to realize, is that there are a lot of place names, many of them in adjectival form (e.g., Lycian) -- more, I think, than in the Odyssey. This is interesting! My students, though, just skip over the names. I probably did the same thing when I was there age -- it wasn't until graduate school that I had a teacher who emphasized the importance of geography in literature. I suspect, though, that skipping over place names leads to skipping over other things, and that's bad.

The other problem is that my students don't know the first thing about Roman history. They've heard of Julius Caesar, and maybe -- but maybe -- they've heard of Augustus. Basic terms like "Republic" and "Empire" have no meaning to them. Granted, most of these students shouldn't be in college in the first place. Prior to coming to North Carolina, I had a lot of students who were lazy, but in general they were curious. Where I teach now, a lot of them aren't even curious. Still, it's my job to do what I can.

One thing I've thought about doing is bringing in some slides of ancient Rome; my hope is that this will make the history a bit less abstract. I'm wondering, though, whether I might have more success if I simply left the history alone and focused on the literary elements.

What think ye?


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David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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