A Guide to Latin Elegy and Lyric. Barbara K. Gold
poem.
Part II. How to Teach Latin Elegiac and Lyric Poetry
Guiding students as they translate the Latin (and its literary figures) is only the beginning. Each genre, each author, each topic, and each poem will invite further analysis and study, raising questions about a wide range of difficult subjects: politics, poetics, gender, sexuality, religion, history, philosophy, ethics, and more. Elegy in particular introduces a number of “uncomfortable” subjects to the classroom, including: abortion, death, rape, and suicide. There is, as yet, no single book offering advice on “how to teach Latin lyric and/or elegy.” However, there is plenty of support and guidance available to help teachers negotiate these challenges and the following suggestions draw upon the wealth of advice collected by experienced teachers in various classroom contexts over the past few decades (see the “Guide to Further Reading” below). Clearly there is no single best approach to teaching Latin lyric and elegiac poetry, but these suggestions are a good starting point:
Get yourself a good “Companion” for the journey – The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, edited by Philip Hardie (2002); A Companion to Latin Literature, edited by Stephen Harrison (2006); A Companion to Catullus, edited by Marilyn Skinner (2007); The Cambridge Companion to Horace, edited by Stephen Harrison (2007); Stephen Heyworth’s Cynthia: A Companion to the Text of Propertius (2007a); A Companion to Ovid, edited by Peter Knox (2009); A Companion to Horace, edited by Gregson Davis (2010); A Companion to Roman Love Elegy, edited by Barbara Gold (2012); and The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy, edited by Thea Thorsen (2013).
Choose a “Reader” – Paul Allen Miller’s Latin Erotic Elegy: An Anthology and Reader (2002) stands out among the current library of textbooks available because it combines a judicious selection of Latin texts (including some pieces by Catullus and Sulpicia) together with textual commentaries and a critical anthology of the key pieces of secondary scholarship. Textbook style “Readers” of individual authors are also great teaching and learning resources. Try: Ronnie Ancona’s Passion: A Catullus Reader (2004); Paul Allen Miller’s, A Tibullus Reader (2013a); Phebe Bowditch’s, A Propertius Reader (2014); and Carole Newlands’, An Ovid Reader (2014).
Find a textbook or set of online resources that works for your needs and those of your students. There are hundreds of textbooks on the market and hundreds more sites online offering free texts, translations, commentaries, and study notes – both for students and teachers. These can vary widely in quality and disappear from servers so we do not offer any specific recommendations of online resources. However, the journal Classical World regularly publishes textbook reviews and surveys so is a good place to begin. Online teachers’ forums such as The Classics Library (https://www.theclassicslibrary.com) host an excellent array of teaching resources too.
Survey the wide range of critical reflections and essays written and published by experienced teachers of lyric and elegy, learn from their mistakes, and borrow their best ideas. The journal Classical World includes a useful section on pedagogy.
Guide to Further Reading
William Fitzgerald’s excellent How to Read a Latin Poem: If You Can’t Read Latin Yet (2013) is an essential piece of reading for both students and teachers of lyric and elegy. Similarly, anyone interested in teaching or learning about meter should consult at least one of Llewelyn Morgan’s studies: “Metre Matters: Some Higher-level Metrical Play in Latin Poetry.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 46 (2000): 99–120; Musa Pedestris: Metre and Meaning in Roman Verse (2010); and “Elegiac Meter: Opposites Attract.” In B. Gold, ed., A Companion to Roman Love Elegy (2012), 204–218. L. P. Wilkinson’s Golden Latin Artistry (1963) is also still relevant here.
In addition to their literary subject content, a number of the “Companions” and “Readers” suggested above also include relevant chapters on pedagogy. See in particular, the four pieces in Barbara K. Gold’s A Companion to Roman Love Elegy (2012): Ronnie Ancona’s “Teaching Roman Love Elegy.”; Barbara Weiden Boyd’s “Teaching Ovid’s Love Elegy.”; Sharon James’ “Teaching Rape in Roman Elegy, Part II.”; and Genevieve Liveley’s “Teaching Rape in Roman Elegy, Part I.” The journal Classical World regularly includes articles on pedagogy and the following offer some useful insights into teaching elegy and lyric: P. Katz’s “Teaching the Elegiac Lover in Ovid’s Amores.” Classical World 102 (2009): 163–167; Laura McClure’s “Feminist Pedagogy and the Classics.” Classical World 94 (2000): 53–55.
The following works of pedagogy also offer useful starting points for anyone teaching Latin lyric or elegiac poetry: Ronnie Ancona’s A Concise Guide to Teaching Latin Literature (2007); Barbara Weiden Boyd and Cora Fox’s Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ovid and the Ovidian Tradition (2010); Richard LaFleur’s Latin for the 21st Century: From Concept to Classroom (1998); and, especially useful for teaching Latin in the US, the regularly updated Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation (current edition by Little, Pearcy, et al. (2010): https://www.aclclassics.org/Portals/0/Site%20Documents/Publications/LatTeachPrep2010Stand.pdf).
1 The Literary, Political and Social Contexts of Latin Elegy and Lyric
Latin elegy and lyric respond immediately to their contemporary socio-political worlds, making it vital that we understand the events and cultural tides of this turbulent period of history before we can properly understand the poetry that is produced in and speaks to this revolutionary context. At the same time, Roman lyric and elegy are also heavily influenced by the older literary traditions of the Greeks and, in order to see what is innovative and exciting about the Roman poets writing in these genres, we first need to know something of this literary background. Only when we have a sense of these background contexts can we fully value the originality of this Latin poetry, appreciate why certain themes and motifs recur in these genres, and recognize not only the ingenuity and sophistication but also the playfulness and humor of this work (see Chapter 9). By holding in mind the important fact that the Roman lyric and elegiac poets all write to some degree under the shadow of the Greek and Roman poets who had preceded them, we are also able to enjoy more fully the rich intertextual allusions that are so characteristic of these two genres.
Literary Contexts for Elegy: Genre and Canon
The earliest extant examples of elegiac poetry date from soon after the time of Homer in the seventh century bce. Surviving fragments suggest that it was used by early Greek poets to compose poems on all kinds of topics – including drinking songs and celebrations of battles. However, early elegy appears to have been associated in particular with short poems used as grave dedications and funeral epitaphs. The Roman love elegists like to remind us of this mournful connection between elegy and death, and we often find death itself as a theme in their poetry. The Roman elegists also make much of two possible etymological roots of elegy: the Greek word elegeia (λεγεα), which is derived from the traditional Greek funerary lament e e legein ( λγειν) – to cry “woe, woe” – and from the related emotion eleos (λεος) pity. Ovid, in an elegy written to commemorate the death of his elegiac predecessor Tibullus, draws an explicit etymological connection between elegy and lamentation (Amores 3.9.3–4):
Flebilis indignos, Elegia, solve capillos!
A, nimis ex vero nunc tibi nomen erit.
(Weep, Elegy, and let down your undeserving hair!
Ah, it is all too true that your name comes from this.)
Horace too declares in his Ars Poetica that: “the foremost theme of poetry in elegiac couplets is lament” (75–6).