Schedule D

Overview

The literature papers in Part IB are designed to offer you a wide choice of topics representing texts from across the field of ancient Latin literature. Within this spread, however, we regard it as very important that during the Part I years everyone should study authors who have always been regarded as central to any engagement with the literature of Greece and Rome; this is the reason why, in the first year, there is a much more narrowly defined syllabus of target texts. The topics studied in the second year focus largely on texts in these same areas, but also afford the opportunity to range more widely outside the traditional canon.

Each paper includes two groups of texts labelled List A (the ‘core’ texts of that topic to be read in the original Latin) and List B (those offering scope for further exploration).

Non-intensive-Latin (Non-IL) candidates (i.e. those offering Paper B1) for any of these papers will be required to have read all texts in the List A of a topic studied for examination. Intensive-Latin (IL) candidates (i.e. those offering Papers B2-3 ) have a reduced list that is noted in the prescriptions below.

 

Aims and objectives

1. To introduce samples of the variety and scope of ancientLatin literature and their importance to later literary traditions.
2. To place that literature in a historical and cultural context, in accordance with the general aims and scope of the Part I course.
3. To introduce the variety of critical approaches possible in the study of classical literature and current trends in criticism.
4. To develop the practice of literary and textual interpretation at the level of detail through ‘close reading’ in Latin.

 

Scope and structure of the examination papers 2024–25

Each paper, taken as a 2-hour in-person examination, is divided into three Sections (A, B and C). Sections A and B each contain a choice of passages from the List A texts: candidates are asked to discuss one passage. Section C contains a choice of essay questions, of which candidates should attempt one.

Different prescriptions apply to different groups of candidates:

• Non-intensive-Latin (non-IL) candidates (i.e. those offering Paper B1) should attempt Sections A and C. Each section is worth 50% of the marks available for the paper.
• Intensive-Latin (IL) candidates (i.e. those offering Papers B2-3) should attempt Sections B and C. Each section is worth 50% of the marks available for the paper.

Unless otherwise stated, extracts from set texts presented in examinations will follow the prescribed editions listed below.

 

Papers

D1 ROMAN COMEDY

PROF. S OAKLEY (8L: Michaelmas)

Comic drama is the earliest Latin literature to survive intact. The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the genre through study of well-known plays in both Latin and English. Topics covered: the genre of New Comedy with special reference to Menander’s Dyscolus (a B text) and how it differs from the Old Comedy of Aristophanes; the arrival of New Comedy at Rome; the nature of Roman theatres; the debt of Roman comic writers to native Italian traditions of farce; the manner in which Plautus and Terence handle the theme of slavery; the structure of their plots and the way in which they adapted Greek material; their characterization, with special reference to stock characters; and metatheatre.

List A

• Non-IL: Plautus, Pseudolus 230–413; 545–766; 905–1335; Terence, Adelphi 26–154; 287–516; 592–881
• IL: Plautus, Pseudolus 545–766; 905–1335; Terence, Adelphi 26–154; 287–516

List B (for ALL candidates)

The remainder of Pseudolus and Adelphi; Plautus Bacchides and Casina; Terence Heauton Timoroumenos; Menander Dyscolus and Dis Exapaton.

Introductory readings

There is no better introduction than to read as many plays of Plautus and Terence in English as possible. Christensen’s edition of Pseudolus (see below) has a useful introduction. See also R.L. Hunter, The new comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 1985).

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries 

The recommended edition for Pseudolus is that by D. Christensen (Cambridge, 2020), for Terence that by R.H. Martin (Cambridge, 1976), both with commentaries; the examination will use their texts. Also useful: M. Willcock, Plautus, Pseudolus (Bristol, 1987) and A.S. Gratwick, Terence The brothers (Warminster, 1987). The B texts are all accessible in the Loeb Classical Library (De Melo for Plautus, Barsby for Terence, and Arnott for Menander).

 

D2 EARLY VIRGIL

PROF S OAKLEY (8L: Lent)

This course will introduce to the first surviving works by Rome’s greatest poet, works that ensured that even before he wrote the Aeneid he was regarded as the greatest living Latin poet. The Eclogues contain exquisitely beautiful pastoral poetry, the first ever written in Latin; the Georgics explore the moral significance of agriculture to a world still linked to the land in a way that ours is not. Topics to be discussed include Virgil’s reinvention of Greek pastoral; love in the Eclogues and Georgics; Roman politics in the Eclogues and Georgics; the Georgics and didactic poetry; the meaning of the Georgics; and the Georgics and earlier poetry.

List A

• Non-IL: Eclogues 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10; Georgics I + III
• IL: Eclogues 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10; Georgics I

List B (for ALL candidates)

Eclogues 3, 5, 6, 8 and Georgics 2 and 4 (plus Georgics 3 for IL students); Theocritus, Idylls 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; 10, 11, 13, Hesiod, Works and days, Varro, De re rustica book 3.

Introductory readings

• P.R. Hardie, Virgil [Greece and Rome new Surveys in the Classics, No. 28] (Oxford, 1998)
• C. Martindale and F. MacGorain, The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (2nd edn.) (Cambridge, 2019).

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries 

Both texts: R.D. Williams, Virgil: the ‘Eclogues’ and ‘Georgics’ (London, 1979) [but this commentary is thinner and generally inferior to those mentioned below]

Eclogues: either R. Coleman, Vergil Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977) or W.V. Clausen, Virgil Eclogues (Oxford, 1994)

Georgics: R.F. Thomas, Virgil Georgics (Cambridge, 1988, 2 vols [books 1–2 vol. i; 3–4 vol. ii]) or R.A.B. Mynor, Virgil Georgics (Oxford, 1990). [Thomas is better on allusion to earlier poetry, Mynors on the general subject matter]

The passages set for examination will be taken from Mynors’ Oxford Classical Text.

 

D3 POLITICS AND POETICS OF CIVIL WAR

This course will not run in 2024-25.

 

D4 WRITING NERO: HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY IN IMPERIAL ROME

PROF C. WHITTON (8L: Michaelmas)

‘What an artist dies in me!’ But what artistry was involved in putting Nero’s life into text? This topic focuses on two celebrated accounts of an infamous emperor, to consider the ‘biographical turn’ in imperial Rome. Book 14 of Tacitus’ Annals makes monumental history of the years ad 59-62, studded with the deaths of three very different women: mother Agrippina, sister-wife Octavia and the British rebel Boudica. Suetonius’ biography promises the inside story on Nero’s whole life, stuffed with gossip, gore – and more sophistication than often assumed. B texts expand the theme: the anonymous play Octavia stages Nero as tragic tyrant; Tacitus’ Annals 13 sheds harsh light on his first years as adolescent emperor; a century later, Cassius Dio gives his verdict on Nero’s reign and Boudica’s revolt. What do these different modes of ‘writing Nero’ tell us about tyranny, history and memory in the Empire?

List A

• Non-IL: (1) Tacitus Annals 14.1-17, 29-39, 48-65; (2) Suetonius Life of Nero 11-50.
• IL: (1) Tacitus Annals 14.1-13, 51-65; (2) Suetonius Life of Nero 20-50.

List B (for ALL candidates)

(1) the rest of Annals 14 and the Life of Nero; (2) ps.-Seneca Octavia; (3) Tacitus Annals 13.1-25 and 42-49; (4) Cassius Dio Roman History Book 62(61).11-21 and Book 62(62).1-12 (= the years A.D. 59-61).

Introductory readings

D.W. Hurley, ‘Biographies of Nero’, in E. Buckley and M. Dinter, eds. A companion to the Neronian age (Malden, MA, 2013), 29-44. A full bibliography will be posted on Moodle at the beginning of the Lent Term.

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries 

(1) E.C. Woodcock, Tacitus Annals XIV (London 1939; repr. Bristol 1992); (2) B.H. Warmington, Suetonius Nero (2nd edn, Bristol 2013).

Two good translations of Tacitus’ Annals (both much better than the Loeb) are J.C. Yardley (Oxford World’s Classics, 2008) and C. Damon (Penguin, 2013); the newer Suetonius Loeb (rev. D.W. Hurley, 1998) has a good translation of his Nero (vol. 2). For the B texts the Loeb editions are most convenient: J.G. Fitch, Seneca: tragedies vol. 2 (2004, for Octavia); J. Jackson, Tacitus vol. 4 (1937); E. Cary, Dio Cassius: Roman History vol. 8 (1914). All these Loebs are available online via iDiscover.

 

D5 ADDRESSING CAESARS

DR E GIUSTI (8L: Lent)

The advent of autocracy at Rome profoundly changed the form and content of Latin literature. This can first be observed in Cicero’s Pro Marcello, addressed to Julius Caesar in 46 BCE. This unique, over-the-top, and somewhat ambiguous speech of praise has been read both as sincere praise and as a sustained exercise in ‘figured speech’ and ‘safe criticism’, which inaugurates a Roman manner of speaking between the lines when addressing Caesars of the early imperial era. In this course, we move from Pro Marcello to look at addresses to the Caesars in a variety of genres and periods: Horace’s hexametric Epistle to Augustus (a somewhat surprising declaration of poetics which pits the poet’s own authority against the authority of the emperor); Ovid’s desperate elegiac bid to Augustus to allow him to come back to Rome from his exile (Tristia 2); a philosophical treatise on ‘clemency’ addressed by Seneca to the emperor Nero (De Clementia); and Pliny’s Panegyric to the emperor Trajan. Among the over-arching topics of the course, we shall explore concepts of ‘Caesarism’, parrhesia and ‘safe criticism’, and textual strategies to anticipate, or invite, anti-Caesarian readings. What is the novelty of ‘Caesarism’, and how does it inform the development of Latin literature and its ability to speak ‘figuratively’, both to the Caesars and to contemporary and future readers? And what does it mean for us to read these texts ‘suspiciously’, imagining that they contain in themselves the seeds of their own subversions?

List A

• Non-IL: Cicero Pro Marcello, Ovid Tristia 2
• IL: Cicero Pro Marcello, Ovid Tristia 2.1-250 (the rest to be read in English)

List B (for ALL candidates)

Cicero Ad familiares 4.4 (= 203 SB) and 4.7-9, 11 (= 229-232 SB); Horace Epistle to Augustus (= Epistles 2.1); Ovid Ibis 1-208; Tristia 1.8, 4.9; Seneca De clementia; Pliny the Younger Panegyricus 1-21

Introductory readings

Ahl, F. (1984) ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJP 105, 174-208.

Barchiesi, A. (1997) The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse, Berkeley.

Bartsch, S. (1994) Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian, Cambridge Mass and London.

Kennedy, D.F. (1992) ‘“Augustan” and “anti-Augustan”: reflections on terms of reference’, in A. Powell (ed.) Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus, London 26–58.

Lowrie, M. (2009) Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome, Oxford.

Russo, M. (2024) Flattery in Seneca the Younger: Theory and Practice, Oxford.

White, P. (1993) Promised verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome, Cambridge, MA.

Woodman, A.J. and D. West (eds.) (1984) Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus, Cambridge.

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries

List A

Cicero Pro Marcello:

Text [from which examinations will be set]: Clark, A. C. (1918) M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, vol.2, Oxford.

Translation: Berry, D. H. (2017) Cicero: Political Speeches, Oxford (also with some notes)

Commentary: Gotoff, H. C. (1993) Cicero’s Caesarian Speeches: A Stylistic Commentary, London.

Ovid Tristia 2:

Text, translation and commentary: Ingleheart, J. (2010) A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2, Oxford.

 

List B

Editions from the Loeb Classical Library, more recent translations noted when available:

Cicero: Cicero, Letters to friends, edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Harvard University Press, 2001.

Horace: Horace, Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, with an English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough, Harvard University Press, 1991.

Horace, Satires and Epistles, A new translation by John Davie, Oxford World’s Classics, 2011. (English only)

Ovid: Ovid, Tristia and Ex Ponto, translated by A. L. Wheeler. Revised by G. P. Goold, Harvard University Press, 1924.

Ovid, Sorrows of an Exile (Tristia), translated by A. D. Melville, Oxford, 1992 (English only)

Ibis in: Ovid, The Art of Love and Other Poems, translated by J. H. Mozley. Revised by G. P. Goold. Harvard University Press, 1929.

Seneca: Seneca, Moral Essays, Volume I, translated by J. W. Basore. Harvard University Press, 1928.

Seneca, Anger, Mercy, Revenge, translated by R. A. Kaster and M. C. Nussbaum, 2010 (English only)

Pliny the Younger: Pliny the Younger, Letters, Volume II: Books 8-10. Panegyricus. Translated by Betty Radice. Harvard University Press, 1969.

 

Courses for ALL candidates

If you did not manage to attend this course in your Prelim. or Part IA year, now is the time to go to:

INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY THEORY

PROF T. WHITMARSH (6 L: Easter)

All scholarly reading and writing about literature is ‘theoretical’, in the sense that it rests upon ideas about what literature is, what it is for, and what it means. The aims of this course are three-fold: firstly, to allow students to understand better what are the hidden assumptions that underpin the way that they have been brought up to read; secondly, to help them understand the range of alternative options available; and thirdly, to give them practical tips to allow them to expand their literary-critical toolkits. The lectures will be accessible — no prior knowledge is assumed — and will benefit any student with any interest in reading ancient literature either as literature or in historical terms. The lectures will cover the more established areas of theory, including narratology, deconstruction and feminism, and also newer fields like ecocriticism and new materialism. A good place for the curious to start is Jonathan Culler’s accessible Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2011).

 

GREEK AND LATIN METRE

PROF. T WHITMARSH (4 L: Easter)

A detailed survey of all the main Greek and Latin metres. After the principles of prosody and scansion have been set out, these metres will be examined roughly in ascending order of difficulty or unfamiliarity. Lecture 1 will focus on the basic principles; Lecture 2 on hexameters and pentameters; Lecture 3 on iambics; Lecture 4 on lyric / strophic metres.

Students may find it useful to read the following introduction: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/05/long-short-latin-poetry/; M.L. West, Introduction to Greek Metre (Oxford, 1987) is a useful reference work.