"X lines to do" in old novels

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jeidsath
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"X lines to do" in old novels

Post by jeidsath »

In Victorian literature, you sometimes run across college students talking about the numbers of lines that they need to do/study. Here is an example from an Anthony Trollope short story:
"Frank," said the sister to her elder brother, knocking at his door when they had all gone up stairs, 'may I come in,--if you are not in bed?"

"In bed," said he, looking up with some little pride from his Greek book; "I've one hundred and fifty lines to do before I can get to bed. It'll be two, I suppose. I've got to mug uncommon hard these holidays. I have only one more half, you know, and then----"

"Don't overdo it, Frank."

"No; I won't overdo it. I mean to take one day a week, and work eight hours a day on the other five. That will be forty hours a week, and will give me just two hundred hours for the holidays. I have got it all down here on a table. That will be a hundred and five for Greek play, forty for Algebra--" and so he explained to her the exact destiny of all his long hours of proposed labour. He had as yet been home a day and a half, and had succeeded in drawing out with red lines and blue figures the table which he showed her. "If I can do that, it will be pretty well; won't it?"
What exactly was involved in this? Would a student be content with reading the lines? Translating them? Was he prepping for an "unseens" examination, or a specific examination on the particular text that he was reading?

I imagine that it probably was not too different from what classics students do in the UK today (or was it?). But I'm not a classics student, and not from the UK, so I'd like to hear from others what the experience is.

As an aside, Anthony Trollope considered his schooldays a total waste, but taught himself Latin in later life, and considered himself fluent. Details are in his autobiography.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Scribo
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Re: "X lines to do" in old novels

Post by Scribo »

I can't vouch that what we do today in the UK is the same as Victorian times, but given that the courses haven't changed too much when it comes to reading, it's probably similar.

So at the start of each course we're given a reading list of texts divided into α and β. The latter being what you absolutely MUST read and will be frequently tested on in tutorials etc, the latter being things you absolutely SHOULD read if you intend to do well in submitted essays and end of year examinations.

There's rather a lot, so what tends to happen is you're assigned sections a week to prep for discussion. In terms of what you want to do, reading twice is the bare minimum. You're going to be called upon to answer various questions of a philological, textual, cultural etc nature so you need to read a good amount of secondary literature. After a while, it gets easier.

This can be theory as much as practice; I still remember the tongue lashing I received for not being able to justify/castigate a textual emendation one way or the other in Seneca's Agamemnon.
(Occasionally) Working on the following tutorials:

(P)Aristotle, Theophrastus and Peripatetic Greek
Intro Greek Poetry
Latin Historical Prose

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