Latin Metre

Latin Metre

*Please note that this course will run only if two or more students enroll.

Course Description: Poems are meant to be read aloud. At least, this was a given in Antiquity: often, they were or music themselves or accompanied by music. Yet, today, many people (from university students to teachers) are feeling uncomfortable to do this, either being unfamiliar with metre at all, or, although knowing how scansion works, are not sure how it is to be actually read. Doing so, you concentrate mainly on the poem’s contents and its rhetoric, but you miss a great deal of the poet’s artwork: its outer form, its sound, its music, which, very often, is employed skillfully to underline the meaning. Apart from that, knowing metre helps a lot in understanding the grammar of a poem (e.g. when you have to decide which words belong together based on its quantities), and appreciate also prose rhythm as adhibited by authors like Cicero or Seneca.

We will start from an introduction into prosody (pronunciation, accent, vowel and syllable quantities etc.), passing on to some selected metres of Classical Roman poetry as e.g. Hexameter, Elegiacs, Iambic Trimeter and Lyrical verses. All of this will always be in line with the skills and wishes of the students, and the atmosphere will be chilled!

DETAILS

Level: Required is a basic knowledge of Latin. The course is for students (High School, university) as well as for teachers who want to feel more secure teaching metre to their class, or everyone else. You do not need to have any experience in metre. If you do have some experience, you can use this course for further practice. An active participation during the lessons is required to make the course for you as effective as possible!

Course language will be English, or, if you are experienced, Latin or a mix of both.

Textbook: Instructor will provide materials. For further information you could use Raven’s “Latin Metre”.

Sections capped at: 5 students. If the course is sold-out, please fill out this waiting-list form.

When
Wednesdays, 12:00p.m. U.S. Eastern Time

Cost
$250

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Instructor

Marina Garanin

Salvete omnes, my name is Marina Garanin. Graduated from Heidelberg (Germany) and Oxford, I am currently working on my PhD on Latin translations from Greek at the University of Heidelberg. I have been teaching living Latin with Telepaideia and on different other occasions, such as, most recently, “Virgil and the Epic tradition” at “Living Latin in Rome” this year; also, I taught Latin metre and Latin verse composition. I have been practising spoken Latin since the beginning of my studies, and I have been taking part in different Latin (and Greek) speaking events. As I love acting, I also participated at “Thalia” in 2022 (Vicenza, Italy) and this year (Vilnius, Lituania), a Latin theater competition organized by the Schola Humanistica with two original tragedies, “Medeae Daemones” and “Agave”, written by Stefano Vittori, in which I played the parts of Medea and Agave. I write metrical poetry in Latin myself (some of the poems are published in the periodical “Vox Latina” from 2019 on). In my free time, besides of writing poetry and acting, I like drawing, singing and writing music; also, being a huge dog lover (not having one on my own though), I like studying dog behaviour and education. Also, I have a Latin YouTube channel (Musa Pedestris) where you can find poetry recitations, latin vlogs, livestreams, and other videos on Latin.