Description and Objectives

This course will include the translation and interpretation of various selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Amores.

Textbooks

Required: In Spring of 2025, we will use a selection of readings from the Metamorphoses and Amores. These selections will be weekly designated by the instructor; but all will come from the textbook for the course: OVID: Amores; Metamorphoses: Selections, Third Edition (edited by Charbra Adams Jestin and Phyllis B. Katz; Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.; 2013), a copy of which will be provided to each student for use during the course, but to be returned (in decent condition!) at the end of the course for future classes.

Recommended: Students of all advanced Latin classes are urged to acquire a dictionary that will be suitable for their high school and undergraduate years. There are several affordable options, including C. T. Lewis’s Elementary Latin Dictionary (Oxford) or Collins Latin Dictionary &  Grammar (HarperCollins).

Course Requirements

Course Requirements

• The student will be expected to prepare, for in-class translation and thoughtful discussion, about 10-20 lines of Ovid’s poetry in Latin per class meeting.

Course Goals

• The student will master, or at least learn, to read, translate and interpret various selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Amores.

Desired Achievements in Student Learning

• The student will sharpen his skill in thinking and communicating. This skill will be acquired, as it usually is, by reading some of the sharpest thinkers and communicators the world has ever known.
• The student will have such mastery of the grammar and syntax of the language, the most important tools, e.g., lexica, reference grammars and commentaries, and the most frequently encountered vocabulary, so that he will be able to read classical Latin texts as literature.

Successful Students

The students successful in this course will: 

• study Latin at least fifteen to forty-five minutes every day of the week, and will
• seek extra help at the first signs of difficulty, not only from the instructor — who is available before/after school, during lunch and occasionally during Mass/Study Hall if necessary — but also from classmates who are performing well.