I have been reading this site for some time but have never posted before. I am nearing the end of Wheelock’s textbook and so in a couple of months will be looking for a good selection of Latin texts to read. I’ll describe my studies and ask for some advice in a topic where it would be appropriate.
I have always been interested in the ancient world and in languages but am just now learning Latin. I am also interested in the medieval period. I have spent some time studying Old English. This is one of the factors which has encouraged me to learn Latin since many who wrote in OE also wrote in Latin, and a lot of historical documents from that period in England were in Latin.
One of my target texts in Latin is De Rerum Natura.
At some point in the indefinite future I would also like to study Greek, but I want to get to a fairly high level of attainment with OE and Latin first. I have a couple of Greek textbooks and Liddell and Scott’s abridged dictionary. I am not spending any time on those habitually, but I will occasionally read from early chapters of these or browse the dictionary.
I, too, started with Wheelock’s with the intention of studying Greek sometime in the indefinite future. It’s very doable on your own and your experience with Old English should help you all the more. Welcome!
Ed: you said you wanted to ask for advice but you didn’t in your post. If you’re looking for stuff to read after Wheelock’s there’s a recent thread on it on the Latin forum. If you want to know when to start on Greek: when it feels right. I wanted to get to a fairly advanced stage of Latin as well but it “felt right” before then; I was comfortable enough with my Latin to place it on the back burner for a bit without losing any of it.
I’m not familiar with Lucretius so I can’t tell you how difficult De Rerum Natura is.
De Rerum Natura isn’t the easiest Latin around: it’s a) poetry, b) written on a conscientiously archaic style, c) the argument itself, philosophical as it is, can be hard to follow. I don’t want to scare you away from it, by any means, but maybe you’d have better luck if you’d hone your skills on easier texts, prose works perhaps. Since you’re interested in Medieval Latin I want to draw your attention to something you’re probably aware of, namely the Dumberton Oaks Medieval Library. It’s a fine selection of Medieval Latin (as well as other languages, Old English, Medieval Greek) with face to face English translations. If you make the effort to leave the English for a last resort, it could be a fun way of learning, especially given the fact that Medieval Latin works tend to have a simpler syntax. If your interest for Medieval Latin isn’t that crucial a point, there are innumerous techniques and methods to gain reading fluency using ancient Latin literature — all the while enjoying said ancient Latin literature Try the Learning Latin board for that one.
Thanks for the responses and welcoming. I will be very pleased to have finished working through Wheelock in a couple of weeks. I don’t want to go too much into discussion of what to read since it is probably best to have that discussion in the other forum location.
Regarding Greek, it definitely does not feel like the right time for me to begin learning yet another language yet. I want to be comfortable reading substantial Latin texts with little preparation and being able to read it fluently. I suspect that is some months away and that it won’t happen in 2016. I was aware that de Rerum Natura would not be easy but I did not realize that it was deliberately archaic. I definitely plan to read a lot of literature before giving that piece a try. I am familiar with the Dumbarton Oaks series. They have several OE poetry volumes I may be interested in. I had not really thought about reading medieval Latin specifically because it may sometimes be syntactically simpler but that is appealing and I will look into that more.
Try the Learning Latin board for that one.