Course Catalogue

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The course examines a period of enormous influence in the history of poetry: the final years of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire. It centres on reading selections from Propertius and Tibullus in Latin, and will also include the study of Catullus, Virgil, and Horace in translation. It focusses on the relationship between love poetry and war, and on the strong sense of poetic identity that was the enduring legacy of the poetry of this period.

5x1hr lectures; 15x1hr seminars over 10 weeks as scheduled in MyCampus. This is one of the Honours courses in Classics and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry in Classics, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes who qualify under the University's 25% regulation.

CLASSIC4094

None

Exam (120 minutes) - 60%

Oral Presentation - Latin commentary (20 minutes) - 40%

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

This course aims to:

■ Provide students with the opportunity to focus on a crucial period in Rome's cultural development and explore its literature

■ Foster students' awareness of the importance of gender and sexuality as expressions of political and social environments

■ Develop skills in close reading and analysis of Latin poetry

■ Develop students' exploring Latin texts from a variety of different perspectives, reflecting the key themes of the course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Produce detailed readings of Latin poetry in both oral and written form

■ Show evidence of understanding of the social, historical, and literary contexts of the poetry studied

■ Present their own research relating to the themes of the course in a coherent and scholarly form

■ Translate selected texts into good English, showing appropriate awareness of the significance of individual phrases and vocabulary

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.