Stefano Vitrano
Sat, 24 Jan 2004 13:01:16 -0800
Firstly I want to make my compliments to Patrick, his e-mails are always very interesting and always raise fascinating questions. I am an Italian student and I can tell you I haven?t already learnt to understand Virgil without using the vocabulary. However Italian is very close to Latin, especially the language used by our most ancient writers, as Dante or Petrarca, and with a careful reading I can understand great part of the text, especially prose, but I?m quite good in Latin. Even, in our dialects you can find more references to Latin because they underwent very little changes during the time. For example I am from Sicily and I enjoy very much finding these references in Sicilian dialect, not only in the words but also in the structure of the sentence. However I think every Italian can superficially understand Latin with a little experience and good will. Moreover by knowing Latin I can understand many words of different written languages, like English, especially the literary one, French and even Rumanian (you should try to read something in this language, if you know Latin, you will find it exceptionally simple). 2) Latin writers of After-.ancient age are more simple to read because they didn?t write in his own language. My English, for example, won?t ever be the same of an Anglophone, simply because I write in a language learnt by books and not speaking every day. I also write sometime in Latin and, even I try to be as close as possible to classical Latin, I won?t ever write in Cicero?s Latin. According to my opinion I can easily understand Dante and Petrarca?s Latin works, but I have some difficulties to translate Cicero. >-- Messaggio originale -- >From: "Patrick Roper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: VIRGIL: Teaching the Aeneid in translation >Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 15:13:04 -0000 >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >I would like to thank all those subscribers who have responded, often very >generously, to my "Nox erat" posting on the broad topic of teaching the >Aeneid in translation. It is particularly valuable, for example, to have >the Latin e-mails from Vincenzo Crupi as these help with my Latin generally >(working, as I do, by myself). > >Sometimes, for my ecological work, I use 16th or 17th century herbals >written in Latin and these, I find, are so much easier to understand than >Classical writing. The explanation, I suppose, is that the authors were >often thinking in their modern European language and translating into Latin >as they went along. The language had also come a long way over the previous >1500 years or so making it clearer, perhaps, to the modern European mind. > >I have read, incidentally, that "the Italian schoolchild has almost as much >trouble learning to read Virgil as the young anglophone" and I would like >to >ask our Italian friends if this is true. Curiously, I understand Italian >quite well as I lived in Rome for a while (my knowledge of Latin helped a >great deal in this because of similarities in vocabulary) but I still find >Latin much, much more difficult than Italian. > >So far as teaching the Aeneid is concerned, the A+ aim would seem to me to >be to persuade people that learning to read, understand and enjoy the >original is a challenging but immensely well-worthwhile endeavour. I read >somewhere once that a reasonably talented student could get a good >understanding of Homer in a couple of years, but it took twenty years to >do >the same with Virgil. This was one of the factors that made me return to >him after many years of absence since my school days. If I am lucky, I >thought, I might just about have twenty years left. > >As well as enjoying it for what it is, the Aeneid, and the other works of >Virgil, whether in translation or not, so often seem to have been used to >teach something else. In the Middle Ages the book(s) were used for sorcery >and divination and this is still reflected in the modern Welsh word >'feryllt' (prounced, roughly, 'verulft') which means a chemist's shop or >pharmacy but was originally, and still is, the Welsh word for 'Virgil'. > >Recently I bought a little book of selections from Vergil and Ovid made by >R. M. Lupton in 1934 which was "intended to provide practice in reading >Latin verse for forms of the year before School Certificate". The >selections from Vergil are all from the Aeneid and nearly all seem to focus >on war, violence and aggression. While Virgil covered these topics in great >depth, of course, I approach him as an author with an astonishing range of >understanding of the human condition and, as I have remarked before, it is >the peerless and moving way of expressing things great and small that is >so >impressive and mysterious. > >So Virgil may have been taught in the past to improve the Latin of students, >to help with an understanding of Roman culture and history, to gain insight >into sorcery, spirituality, war and so on. > >A question I ask myself is that, apart from teaching the Aeneid so that >people can enjoy it more, what particular messages does it hold for our >time? Like all great works of art, the Aeneid seems to me to grow as time >goes by: it is no longer simply what Virgil wrote, but what hundreds of >generations have written and thought about it, and how they have used it >as >a springboard for further endeavours. > >I was watching a TV programme the other day about Rodin's celebrated >sculpture "The Kiss". Apparently the couple, contrary to what has often >been thought, represent Paolo and Francesca from Dante's Divine Comedy. >Both great works, both, in part, stimulated by, and responding to, Virgil. >Helen South mentioned the lament "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's >opera 'Dido and Aeneas'. This is usually played in Britain during the >services on Remembrance Day and occurs over and over again in documentaries >about some of the more tragic episodes of the last hundred years. When I >hear it my mind always drifts back through the Purcell to Virgil and to the >fact that his imagination was also reaching far back into the past. There >is something very profound about such a striking, fresh and beautiful chain >of links reaching so far back into human history. Such chains are surely >much more likley to occur if people create works of art that have lasting >relevance, and the more we understand the various links in the chain, the >more our own appreciation will be enhanced. > >Patrick Roper > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. >Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message >"unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You >can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub Stefano Vitrano C.E.I. school, Palermo, Italy [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub