2/18/2023 0 Comments Scansion of aeneidI can see the merits of starting with just practicing syllable division, I just haven’t done it that way myself. *Maybe in the future I’ll try explaining the last thing using the terminology of closed versus open syllables, but I tend to skip the step of dividing syllables with the students, because I don’t want to overcomplicate something that is already quite complicated. the vowel in it is followed by 2 or more consonant sounds:*.ui is only a diphthong in 4 words: huic, huius, cui, cuius.it contains a long vowel: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.Then I write out the three reasons a syllable can be long, with examples:Ī syllable is LONG if any of these are true… (I also avoid using the term ‘a vowel long by position’, as that implies that somehow the short vowel sound is lengthened if a cluster of consonants follows it – I would simply call that a ‘long syllable’ which may contain a short vowel.) I explain that long syllables take twice as much time to say as short syllables, and I draw some musical notation (a crochet and a quaver) to reinforce that this is a timed rhythm. The words ‘long’ and ‘short’ are more clearly about the quantity of time. I use the words ‘long’ and ‘short’ rather than ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ because ‘heavy’ sounds like a stressed syllable and ‘light’ sounds like an unstressed syllable, and I don’t want them to think that way. It is far more intuitive to get the feel for scansion in a Greek environment, so why not set up a similar type of situation initially for our Latinists?įirstly, I explain that Latin syllables can be long or short. In my own experience, I have found that scansion is far easier to pick up in Ancient Greek than in Latin, because even if not all long vowels are given macrons, at least the eta and omega characters mark the long ē and ō, and all elisions are printed for you. By starting with a text of printed macrons, it is easier for students to see (without the teacher explaining it) that the rhythm emerges from the word choice, and macrons are not just invisibly appearing whenever the puzzle demands it. In other words, it is not the meter which determines the vowel length, but the vowel length which produces the meter. But the poet worked the other way, carefully choosing words according their innate sounds so that they would produce the desired rhythms. When you learn to scan on blank letters, you end up thinking backwards about vowel length – ‘it can be worked out when you know the rules’. By printing macrons, we show them that Latin vowels are innately long or short – not just whether they ‘need to be for the meter’. ![]() I start with a text that has the macrons printed in it (and I pre-mark out the elisions, if I haven’t already taught elision). My goal is to bring them to understand scansion from first principles. My goal in this session is not to give students a step-by-step formula for answering exam questions – not yet. About $13 of that will go to support Medecins Sans Frontieres (the rest to Lulu).Icarus and Daedalus – our set passage from Ovid, and perhaps a metaphor for how students feel when they first see hexameter scansion. You can buy a paperback version of this from Lulu for $20. You can browse the directory of texts here. Of course, only a monster would want to read something like jubet uenientis/es… jubet venientes), no scansion, double spaced for scansion practice: pdf With intervocalic i as j, intervocalic u as v, and 3rd declension i-stem accusative plural ending -es (e.g.With intervocalic i as i, intervocalic u as u, and 3rd declension i-stem accusative plural ending -is (e.g.With intervocalic i as i, intervocalic u as v, and 3rd declension i-stem accusative plural ending -is (e.g. ![]() ![]() ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |