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This year I opted for the Latin For Americans textbooks instead of the Oxford Latin Course.
Here is why I do not like the Oxford Latin Course.
1. The future tense is taught in Chapter 27, which is in the second book. (Book II starts with Chapter 17.) This means that my students were learning the future tense in their second year and missing any questions having to do with the future on their National Latin Exam, unless I quickly ran through it. By contrast, the Latin For Americans textbook teaches the future tense for the first and second conjugations in Lesson 6 (covered in the first nine weeks) and the future tense for the third and fourth conjugations in Lessons 32 and 34 (covered in the third nine weeks). Separating the two formations of the future is another improvement because the students are not overwhelmed by the two sets of endings.
2. The introduction of grammar in general is too slow-paced. Working through the three Oxford books, I usually complete the grammar halfway through Latin 3.
Additionally, the Oxford books are divided into two halves. The first introduces vocabulary, has a lengthy translation, and describes some aspect of Roman culture. The second section, located at the back of the book, is an explanation of grammar. I think that the authors’ intent for this strange division was to emphasize learning Latin through immersion in reading, but I do not believe this works very well. I also think the explanations of the grammatical concepts are not thorough enough.
3. The Oxford Latin Course readings are a continuous story, following the life of Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) from his childhood in Venusia to his death in Rome. The editors actually do a great job with this story, taking advantage of every opportunity to tell us about Roman life and the events of this particular period of history, which includes the assassination of Julius Caesar, the defeat of Brutus (and Horace, too, who fights in his army), the Battle of Actium (Quintus hears reports about this event), and the rise of Augustus. In the third book, readers learn about poetry as Horace meets Maecenas, Vergil, and Propertius. I applaud the editors for all the information they are able to cover while writing a continuous story following one Roman’s life, and part of me actually enjoys this about the Oxford books.
On the other hand, however, confining the story to Horace’s life, no matter how creative the editors are, confines the variety of things that Latin students get to read about. In Latin For Americans, the selections cover a broad area of topics and gives the editors more freedom.
4. The Oxford books can have very lengthy readings and long vocabulary lists with each chapter. The readings and vocabulary of LFA are much shorter and more varied. I find that students get bored if a story goes on and on.
5. Although the Oxford books cover the Trojan War and Aeneas’s love affair with Dido pretty well (Horace’s grammaticus tells these stories to his students), they do neglect the adventures of Odysseus and the other events of the Aeneid. The Oxford books also tell the Cupid and Psyche story well, but that is the extent of the mythology.
I am not altogether against the Oxford books. As noted above, I appreciate the variety of subjects that they accomplished within the framework of the Horace story. I especially appreciate the cultural explanations that accompany each chapter. And the readings, while lengthy, do immerse the students with Latin, which probably accustoms many of them to Latin prose. As a whole, however, I am glad to put down the Oxford textbooks.
Stay tuned for the end of the year, when I hope to review the Latin For Americans textbooks.
(Warning: Spoilers below!)
As an AP:Vergil teacher, I was excited to discover Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin, and I have even considered adding it to the curriculum for the class. Told from the perspective of the Latin princess Lavinia, future wife of Aeneas, this book retells the events of the last six books of the Aeneid and also imagines the reigns of Aeneas’s two sons, Ascanius and Silvius.
There are three things I especially liked about Lavinia. The first is that LeGuin paints a vivid picture of Roman religion. There are no Greek gods in her Italy, only the earthy rites and festivals of wild, unhuman Roman gods. Since religion permeated a Roman’s life, it plays a prominent feature throughout this story also. As much as students enjoy the Greek pantheon with its colorful escapades, I find the more simple, spiritual religion of the Romans to be more interesting. Reading this book will help expose them to Roman religion untainted by Greek mythology.
The second thing I enjoyed about Lavinia was that LeGuin imagines her main character meeting a dying Vergil in a series of visions that Lavinia has in the forests of Albunea. Vergil learns what a fascinating and strong character Lavinia is, and he regrets his marginalization of her in the Aeneid. For her part, Lavinia learns about the future glory of Rome and the past glory of her soon-to-be husband Aeneas. However, knowledge of the future has a price, as Lavinia learns when Vergil informs her that Aeneas will rule in Italy for only three years. I thought it was a nice touch to have the poet interact with his poem.
Finally, I especially enjoyed LeGuin’s take on the death of Aeneas. After the war with the Latins, Aeneas is constantly haunted by his refusal to show mercy to Turnus. LeGuin gives him a chance to redeem himself. In the third summer of his reign in Lavinia, Aeneas and some soldiers investigate some minor raids on the borders of his kingdom. They encounter and overpower one of the bands, and Aeneas pins one of the raiders, a teenager, to the ground with his sword. He is about to kill him, but when the young man begs for mercy, he yields. Aeneas lets him go, but as he runs away, the young man picks up a discarded spear and hurls it through Aeneas’s back.
LeGuin has an interesting take on Ascanius. Although he loves his father, he feels the need to emerge from the long shadow cast by him. Proud and impatient, Ascanius lacks his father’s tact and frequently stirs up conflict with the Italian tribes surrounding the Latins. He turns out to be a bad ruler. Aeneas’s true heir is Silvius, his son with Lavinia. Reserved and brave like his father, Silvius emerges from Lavinium as a co-ruler with Ascanius whose power and affection among the Latins waxes as Ascanius’s wanes.
What I do not like about this book is LeGuin’s retelling of the war between the Latins and the Trojans. Because the story is given from Lavinia’s point of view, the fighting is told almost exclusively from reports that the princess receives from others who witness it. Hardly anything is added to Vergil’s version and the story becomes boring. Thankfully, there is much more to Lavinia than the Italian war.
All in all, I enjoyed Lavinia. I appreciated that LeGuin did not try to change the story by making Aeneas into some kind of tyrant, and I enjoyed her take on the character of Lavinia and the events that followed Aeneas’s death. B
Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz is about a Roman general named Vinicious who falls in love with the young Christian Lygia, a hostage being kept in the home of a kind, respected family. When Vinicious converts to Christianity, his love for Lygia is threatened by the persecutions of Nero.
Quo Vadis does an expert job of describing Roman culture and history during the reign of Nero. Readers will learn about the people and events of this historical period and encounter great descriptions of: the emperor’s lavish dinner, Nero’s infatuation with his own artistic ability, the group of flatterers surrounding the emperor, early Christianity in Rome, the monstrous fire of Rome, and the severity of the Christians’ persecution under Nero. The only historical inaccuracy that I caught was that Sienkiewicz makes Nero responsible for the fire that consumes Rome.
Students will not enjoy the slow pace of the book or the formal dialogue. They may or may not be touched like I was by tender scenes of forgiveness, repentance, loyalty, and self-sacrifice, but they will surely find the descriptions of Christian torture interesting and the episode of Ursus defeating the bull in the arena exciting.
I give the book a B.
Since it is the Christmas season, I have been trying to incorporate a bit of festive spirit into my classroom. We have been singing carols, translating the Luke 2 passage, and learning about Saturnalia.
The three carols we have been working on are Angelus Ad Virginem, Adeste Fideles, and Rudolphus. Since Angelus Ad Virginem is the most challenging, I made only the Latin 3 students translate it, supplying a couple of Medieval words that they did not have in their dictionaries. I personally love this song, and there is a great youtube video of a cheerful choir singing the first, third, and fifth stanzas. The students, however, have not been as excited about it, but then again, this year’s group is pretty grumbly and hard to please. Adeste Fideles is very simple Latin, appropriate for all classes, and there’s a nice youtube of Enya singing the first two verses. Rudolphus is the carol the students find most exciting because it tickles them to think of a modern, silly song being translated into Latin. Incidentally, there is a link on my blogroll to a wonderful site called Gaudium Mundo, which is dedicated to Christmas songs in Latin.
The Luke 2 passage presents a challenge both to the students and to me. The students have a difficult time with the vocabulary, and I have a difficult time keeping them from copying from their Bibles. But once we get past those itinital difficulties, the students have found that the Latin grammar and word order is much more simple than what they have been translating earlier in the year, and they enjoy translating a familiar story.
There is an old book called Augustus Caesar’s World: 44 B.C.- A.D. 14 by Genevieve Foster that my school’s library gave me when they were clearing out a few things. It’s really a book for junior high students, but it has great cultural, philosophical, and historical information, including a short section on the Saturnalia, which I used today to introduce the students to this holiday. The book is probably out of print, but it’s a great resource.
