I do not know of any formal how to do it manuals of Latin verse composition from the period, and suspect that print was not the method by which such skills were passed on: teachers would teach teachers who then taught. Dons in those days were allowed to keep some things in their heads without publishing them... Oh tempora, etc
The standard texts for grammar school Latin (Erasmus's de Copia and de Ratione Studiendi) are aimed a prose copia, but may offer fragmentary insights into questions of quantity etc. The exchange between More and Brixius over More's Latinity reveals some of the expectations at least of a European community about how verse should be composed c. 1515, as well as some fine quibbles over bad quantities and so on. Hands on pedagogy is also on display in the row between Horman and Lily which used to be called the Grammarians' War (see David R. Carlson, English Humanist Books: Writers and Patrons, Manuscript and Print, 1475-1525 (Toronto and London, 1993)). I would think that if any formal manuals exist they would have been caught in T.W. Baldwin, William Shakespare's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke 2 vols. (Urbana, 1944). Much very useful material on the pedogogy behind neoLatin verse is in Bradner, L. Musae Anglicanae: The History of Anglo-Latin Poetry 1500-1925 Modern Language Association of America General Series X New York and London, 1940. I have recently read the very learned D.K. Money, The English Horace: Anthony Alsop and the Traditions of British Latin Verse (Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1998) Price �38; Publication Date: 3rd December 1998. ISBN 0 19 7261841 and I don't recall anything in there about the lower levels of learning verse composition--though I would supect by about 1720 the book trade would see some financial rewards in those sorts of manual. Probably the best person to get in touch with to augment these scanty thoughts would be James Binns at York. Colin Burrow, Fellow and Tutor, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge CB2 1TA tel. 01223 332483 www: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/homepage/cjbhome.htm > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David > Wilson-Okamura > Sent: 21 June 1999 16:35 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: VIRGIL: teaching Latin verse in grammar schools > > > Forwarded message from: Robin Sowerby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 15:42:40 +0100 > > I decided to make contact via the internet with other Virgilians because I > am rather isolated at my university where there is no classics department > and I have come up against a problem to which so far I have not > been able to > find the answer. Part of my current project requires that I find evidence > for the teaching of Latin verse in grammar schools in the Renaissance and > beyond. Virgil and Ovid, then as now, must have been the main models for > neo-Latinists as they made their own verse compositions. I have > browsed the > British Library catalogue and drawn a blank; I can find no > manuals of verse > composition for the earlier period at all. This material must exist if I > knew the right place in which to look. Do you know of any > scholars who might > be able to help me? > > - Robin Sowerby > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
