To write an introduction, I’m an English teacher from the UK living in Spain, I studied politics at University but have a healthy regret for not having studied Classics, however my secondary school didn’t offer Latin or Greek.
I’ve been working through Familiar Romana on and off for a few years and have just finished (almost) Fabulae Syrae but am having extreme difficulty with getting through the Ovid verses, much as I have found De arte poetica considerably harder than anything else in FR. Any tips to improve in that respect? I’ve just started to use a prose composition book in the hope that it’ll improve my understanding.
I’m greatly impressed by the level of knowledge that seems to exist on this board!
Welcome to Textkit!
I’ve never used the Orberg series, but I’ve read a fair amount of Ovid and so I tried to find what poems Fabulae Syrae contain and came across this:
These are commentaries for each of the stories, which Miraglia has rewritten in prose form. The commentaries may help you when you get stuck. They appear to be fairly thorough, perhaps even too thorough, so I’d try to work out the meaning as best you can before using these.
As far as De Arte Poetica (Chapter 34) is concerned, there was enough of it in the Amazon preview for me to see what you’re dealing with. Latin poetry is challenging, but rewarding. This is where having a firm grasp of morphology is handy. The good news is the syntax is usually pretty straight forward. The challenge is in making sense of the word order. Not only is it varied to satisfy metrical demands, but it also used to achieve various effects, e.g. chiasmus, alliteration, hyperbaton, etc.. I see Orberg includes one of my personal favourites from Catullus: Carmen 13 (Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me…). Once you’ve gained the sense of the verses, and can read the poem metrically, then you can set about determining the meaning of the poem. At this point a good commentary will be (to my mind at least) indispensible.
As you’ve seen, there are a number of regular posters here who are well versed (shameless pun) in Latin poetry and will be glad to help.
I am a retired veterinarian with a lifelong interest in the Classics. I studied Latin in high school and, after a long hiatus, am now taking Latin 102 at the local university.
I recently found LLPSI as a resource and am astounded at how much the natural language approach excels over the grammar-translation approach, My eventual goal is to be able to read and enjoy the classics of Latin and Greek literature.
Just as the design of the Pantheon can be seen echoed in civic structures across Europe and America, so the oratory of the ancients reverberate throughout Western literature and discourse. I’ve always felt that I was missing something in my grasp of rhetoric and composition, and I hope to establish a solid foundation with the help of the wonderful and learned scholars of Textkit.
Thank you so much for your reply, the page that you linked looks to be really helpful! I’d say you’re definitely right about having strong morphological knowledge. I’m hoping the prose composition will help me improve that!