Beginning with Latin Prose Composition

Latin Learning Latin
1

Salvete!

In a different thread the question was raised how to gain a more active command of the Latin language. I suggested turning to a book about Latin prose composition, and feeling that this topic deserves its own thread, voilà.

I am myself facing this exact problem, namely that I would like to be able to actually use Latin, at least a bit, with improving my reading skills as an important benefit.

Learning Latin prose composition (LPC) seems to be not quite that easy (probably the understatement of the year, although still easier than Greek prose composition, I guess). Most of us do not have access to a teacher correcting our errors. So, the least one needs is a Key to the exercises in the respective LPC-textbook. But the textbook itself needs to be helpful as well. Some only give references to Latin grammars, some a bit more. Others in turn only contain exercises.

The only LPC-book appealing to me is Thomas Kerchever Arnold’s A Practical Introduction to Latin Prose Composition as edited and revised by George Granville Bradley (see the 1908-edition at Archive.org). And it is this which I am embarking on using right now. I especially like it that the authors go out of their way to explain things. This suits me fine. There are two Keys available, the original one, and a later one (first published, as far as I can see, in 1939). However, the later one does not contain translations of the Supplementary Exercises. These are only contained in the original Key. In addition, the earlier Key features explanatory notes and references to sections in the LPC-book, which I find very useful for anyone trying to tackle LPC on his/her (its?) own. I am currently transcribing the old Key (I have reached Exercise 41, that is more or less the middle of the Key).

Of course, this choice is only my opinion. A few things I would like to know from the Textkit-users, especially the old-timers:

  • Which LPC-books did you use to learn to actively use Latin? Any recommendations or warnings?
  • Any suggestions as to how to practise active Latin, aside from doing the exercises in the chosen LPC-textbook?
  • In the absence of a teacher correcting errors made, how can I avoid learning wrong Latin (aside from reading, of course).

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus

2

When I was in college, a long time ago, G.P. Goold (a great Latinist and a great teacher who presided over the rejuvenation of the Loeb Classical Library and for a time occupied Housman’s chair at the University of London) gave assignments from Bradley’s Arnold in a Latin composition course.

But I would say that reading is the key to acquiring a feeling for writing good Latin prose, or at least the ability to recognize bad, unidiomatic Latin. There are three pre-eminent writers of Latin prose who are good models: Cicero (mwh would disagree), Livy and Seneca. (Tacitus and Sallust are also masters of Latin prose, and you should read them, too, but their style is highly idiosyncratic.) If you haven’t already, you should develop the capacity to read large amounts of prose rapidly and without translating mentally.

For prose composition, it’s very important to check nearly every word you write, at least at first, in one of the two Latin-English dictionaries that cite abundant examples of usages–Lewis & Short or the Oxford Latin Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary is an advance on L&S, but L&S is still eminently serviceable, and none of the other Latin-English dictionaries will do for this purpose. It’s very easy to misuse a Latin word taken from an English-Latin dictionary without checking one of the two Latin-English dictionaries to make sure how it was actually used in Latin and by whom. You need to make sure you’re not using a Latin word in a sense in which a canonical Latin author would not use it. Checking words systematically in either of the Latin-English dictionaries when writing composition exercises will be a big help in mastering the fine points of Latin vocabulary.

3

Bradley’s Arnold Latin Prose Composition is a good text. I don’t know about an online key, but there is a key you can buy from Cambridge U press.
You might try the composition exercises in Moberly’s Caesar (link on Textkit homepage). They ask you to compose increasingly complex Latin based on the text of Caesar you have already read.

4

Gratias tibi ago!

Both for the recommended authors (I am currently concentrating on Livy) and the Dictionary. As for the authors, you do mean the younger Seneca (“Epistulae morales” et al.), do you? And as for the dictionaries: is there an L&S-edition which you can recommend (print quality, binding)? I have heard of complaints about the newer prints made for the Oxford University Press.

Nunc vale,

Carolus Raeticus

5

Yes, Seneca the philosopher, and the Epistulae Morales are good reading material–written in a lively and forceful style, still relevant even today, and none of them too long. The younger Pliny’s letters are also good models of Latin prose, too. Read Sallust and Tacitus, but at least for now, don’t model your Latin after them.

L&S, as I’m sure you know, is available on-line, but I find the print edition more helpful. There are plenty of copies available used, with clear type. It’s a big investment, but if you plan on seriously involving yourself in Latin–especially Latin prose composition–it’s a good idea to take the plunge. Again, I would advise looking nearly every word (maybe with the exception of common function words) for composition exercises, for the variety of meanings as well as for grammatical questions, such as the correct cases of the complements of verbs.

6

I’ve used Bennett, North and Hillard, and Bradley’s Arnold (ed. Mountford), as well as a French book by Bizos, and my favourite was Bradley’s Arnold.

To practice actively using Latin, you might try writing to someone in Latin. There are some users on textkit (like myself, and bedwere for instance) who would enjoy it.

There’s no way you can avoid errors you are not aware of, so I don’t know how you can avoid writing “wrong” Latin without being corrected by someone. That’s the point of doing exercises corrected by a key, or better yet, a competent teacher (hard to find). You can also find someone to imitate, and see how he expresses something you would have said differently. The question also hinges on what is “wrong” Latin. It’s not very hard to spot grammatically incorrect Latin, but writing idiomatic Latin is a different matter. Most often composition is used simply to help acquire Latin grammar, in which case grammatically correct will do. But when composition is done for its own sake, we seek to write using good style, which requires lots of reading.

7

In my experience, the only authors generally considered worth imitating are those of the Ciceronian age, which means Cicero, Caesar, and Nepos. Here’s something I dug up from one of my composition books:

Pour des raisons multiples, qui vont du prestige traditionnel de quelques auteurs aux commodités de l’enseignement et de correction, l’usage du thème latin s’est fixé à la syntaxe de Cicéron et de César, et non pas même de Cicéron tout entier – car dans son oeuvre abondante et diverse les divergences ne manquent pas – mais de ceux de ses ouvrages où le style est le plus soigné et le plus «pur». Le dogme syntaxique ainsi défini est devenu la loi du genre, ou, si l’on veut, la règle du jeu. Il convient d’accepter cette loi, et de jouer le jeu. Mais cette rigueur doit-elle s’appliquer aussi strictement à l’emploi du vocabulaire? Pour tout ce que l’on peut exprimer avec les mots et les emplois de Cicéron et de César, il faut s’en tenir à ces mots et à ces emplois. Mais quand certains textes français, qui peuvent être proposés en thème latin, expriment des idées ou des impressions qui débordent le cadre des idées et des impressions que nous trouvons dans ces auteurs, il paraît raisonnable d’élargir quelque peu nos ressources. En particulier pour l’analyse des idées morales ou la psychologie un peu subtile, on peut, croyons-nous, utiliser sans trop de scrupules le vocabulaire et les moyens d’expression de Sénèque, qui est un maître en la matière; et, lorsqu’il s’agit d’impression esthétiques, de descriptions de nature, les lettres de Pline le Jeune offrent des notations dont il est permis de disposer. [> Translate> ]

8

.

9

I should have mentioned Caesar. But Seneca is an author who is worth reading and emulating. Nepos is colorless. And I wouldn’t rule out any part of Cicero’s oeuvre, recognizing that his letters are in a less formal register. But they’re real Latin, by one of the great masters of Latin prose. I think it would be close-minded and, really, silly to confine yourself to his speeches or philosophical/rhetorical works and turn up your nose at the epistolary style.

10

Just a couple of quick points, partly reinforcing what’s been said.

To be really effective, prose composition requires more than a key, it requires input from someone really proficient in the language. That way you get to learn not only from your mistakes but from your infelicities.

Checking the meaning of words is not enough. There’s much more involved than proper use of vocabulary—idiom, word order, style, ….

The best way to improve reading skills, it goes without saying, is to read, variously and attentively. But trying to compose can be very helpful too, and the two can support one another. The worst way is to try to speak.

OK, so I can’t count.

11

Salvete!

Thank you for your hints. So, basically it is like this:

  • Work through an LPC-book with special attention to the exercises and what the Key has to say about these.
  • Read selected authors, in my case probably especially Livy and Seneca. I’m not sure about reading letters (Cicero, Pliny)–are these not difficult to understand without a lot of knowledge about the respective author’s personal background and less well-known aspects of the ancient society?
  • Lots of dictionary work. I should have done so more in the past, I guess, but there is always something driving me ahead in a text once I understand “most” of it. Stories want to unfold and urge me on, I guess. But “multum legere” instead of “multa legere” is probably the keyword in this case.
  • Composition exercises (probably close to the exercises in the LPC-book, perhaps variants of the sentences there) with more (and especially careful) dictionary work.

One more thing: is there an offline-version of L&S “Latin Dictionary” available? I know there is an app for smartphones, but something for normal desktop computers (ideally not platform dependent). If not, is there an alternative interface for it? The Perseus/Tuft-interface is horrible.

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus

12

I’m not sure about reading letters (Cicero, Pliny)–are these not difficult to understand without a lot of knowledge about the respective author’s personal background and less well-known aspects of the ancient society?

Whatever you read, you should get your hands on commentaries, or at least annotated editions. All ancient texts–Cicero’s speeches, Caesar’s commentaries, Livy’s history, and especially poetry–call for extensive background on history, politics, social relations, material culture, etc., as well as the individual personalities involved. Commentaries can supply the background you will need to engage fully with the texts. And the more you read this way, the more background you will accumulate, and the more interesting the texts will become. Reading Latin and Greek in a vacuum, with little or no background, isn’t really a satisfying experience. The goal should be to engage with the texts, not just to let them wash over you.

13

I used North & Hillard, and hated it: so old, so mindnumbingly dull. But looking at it now I see it with different eyes and have to say it looks very good, despite now being so much older still. Introduces “sequence of tenses” right from the start, proceeds systematically through the various kinds of construction, gives well graded exercises (despite all that military stuff and antiquated Latinate English). I even like the numbered “Rules,” conveniently underlined in the Textkit copy. The Latin it covers is only classical (inapplicable to Plautus, say, and to late Latin), and is a bit straitjacketed, but I guess that’s what most people want.

I don’t know the others, however. — I’ve just taken a quick look at Bennett, and it seems too fussy, not to mention confining itself first to Caesar and then to Cicero. Looks like a sure-fire passion-killer to me. Never thought I’d be promoting N&H, but it gives all the important stuff, in an accessible and well-organized way, and will be very useful for mere readers of Latin too. Haven’t looked at the key, but of course that will be invaluable to a self-learner, and (despite what I said before) should be adequate till the more advanced stages.

On the other points:
It’s harder to write like Livy or Seneca than Cicero or Caesar. Cicero’s formal prose is fun to imitate. His letters are informal and colloquial, the closest we can get to actual upper-class speech. (A group of us soaked ourselves in them as preliminary to conversing in Latin. It worked, and worked well, but was ruinous to elegant composition.) Pliny’s (like Seneca’s) are more by way of being literary compositions, and would be very good for composition purposes (and others!). It’s hard to write like Seneca, he’s so pithy and pointed, but you should definitely read him and by all means try.

I wouldn’t drop “multa legere” in favor of “multum legere.” You should sample many authors, and many genres, if only in order to appreciate their different stylistic qualities. Tacitus takes some getting used to, for instance, but is well worth it. And how about poetry?

The OLD (which I use the old-fashioned way) is better than L&S, but use whichever is more convenient. Use nothing smaller, as Hylander said.

As to Hylander’s latest re comms., it is perfectly possible to read Latin purely for the pleasure of experiencing how the language works and what can be done with it, but certainly you’ll get much more out of the texts if you understand what they’re talking about and can contextualize them.

ερρωσο

14

A suggestion to start: it’s a lot of fun composing short texts for Viviparidus’s delightful comic strips. Check them out in the Agora (there are threads both for Latin and Greek).

15

Diogenes is a downloadable software, which, among other things, contains a copy of the L&S. It’s an incredible tool - I’m sure you’ll enjoy all of it’s features.

link: https://community.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes/index.php

Best of all: it’s free!

16

Some lol moments there. And there’s your Ben Hur (sorry I haven’t been more active there). And the Latin weather channel has charming and lively and loving living Latin that has me wanting to tell the two of you to get a room. :smiley:

17

No problem, as long as no Greek love is involved :wink:

18

Thank you for this suggestion. That is definitely a better way to use L&S with the computer.

Vale,

Carolus Raeticus

19

Why Livy and Seneca? They are very good authors indeed, but it seems that everyone here but one person suggested concentrating on Cicero (and I would add Caesar) for prose composition. Coincidentally, Livy and Seneca are possibly my favourite authors, so I have nothing against them, but it is generally established that they are not models of Latin prose.

I would suggest using Livy as part of a necessary reading cursus. Here is an ordered list of reading that I think should be undertaken after finishing a beginner’s book such as Wheelock:

Preparation:

  1. Lhomond’s Epitome Historiae Sacrae
  2. Ritchie’s Fabulae Faciles
  3. Lhomond’s De Viris.

Authors:

  1. Caesar
  2. Pliny the younger
  3. Cicero’s speeches
  4. Livy 1-10, 20-30
  5. Sallust
  6. Seneca (letters and dialogues)
  7. Cicero’s other works
  8. Pliny the elder
  9. Tacitus

It would be more profitable to concentrate on the masters of prose, then move onto poetry. I would place the authors in this order of difficulty:

  1. Catullus
  2. Virgil
  3. Plautus
  4. Ovid
  5. Lucretius
  6. Horace

I wonder what others think of this list.

20

Salve Nesrath,

thank you for the list.

Seneca mostly because a quick glance at his Epistulae Morales made these seem more interesting than Cicero’s philosophical work (and requiring less background knowledge than Cicero’s speeches). As for Livy, his battle descriptions provide “lively” Latin, and I am currently reading selected passages (actually not only Livy, but a few other authors as well) suggested by Sargent & Dallin in their Materials and Models for Latin Prose Composition.

Vale,

Carolus Raeticus