This class is designed to help you make the transition from translating Latin to reading it. At the same time, it provides an introduction to two of the most influential and engaging poetic corpora of antiquity: the shorter poems of Catullus and the Odes of Horace. In class, we will focus on a limited number of poems, paying attention to what gets “lost in translation” (meter, word order, diction), as well as to more readily translatable features, such as figuration, rhetoric, and genre. Review of grammatical constructions is also inherent in the way this class is taught. Occasional readings in the critical and poetic reception of this poetry will contextualize and help direct class discussion. The class meets the L&S Breadth requirement for Arts & Literature.

Besides ongoing classwork (20%), requirements include brief weekly quizzes (20%), a Rare Books library assignment (5%), a short paper (5-6 pp.; 15%), two midterms, each worth 10%, and cumulative final exam (20%).