LATIN 461 A: Latin Literature of the Republic

Pre-term course syllabus

Latin 461 (5 cr) AQ 2018 MW 2:30-4:20: Latin Literature of the Republic

Catullus: the longer poems

Prof. Stephen Hinds, Department of Classics  shinds@uw.edu

Not just the poet of odi et amo, Catullus is the author of some of the most memorable longer poems in Latin (61-68), experimental in their approaches to myth and representation, and featuring themes of love, marriage, death and delusion. The centerpiece of the course will be Catullus’s closest approach to epic, poem 64, in hexameters (about 400 lines), on the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, with its inset story of Theseus and Ariadne; also featured prominently will be poem 68, a radically innovative elegy (160 lines), which stands at the junction of ‘long-form’ and ‘short-form’ Catullus, and blends the personal (Lesbia, Catullus’s dead brother) with the mythological in a dizzying structure of poetic analogies; and poem 63, exotic alike in theme (divine possession and self-castration) and in meter (the galliambic: about 90 lines). Our day-to- day guide will be the text and commentary by Kenneth Quinn (Bloomsbury: Bristol Classical Press), which will be available for purchase at the University Bookstore.

Note: this is an upper-level Latin reading class, which presupposes first-year and some second-year college Latin coursework, or equivalent.  Please email the instructor if unsure whether your level of Latin language work is right for this class.  The other option is Latin 305, also offered in Autumn Quarter, which starts our second year (intermediate) Latin sequence.