Latin 520 ('Schooling the Emperor'):
Assignment for Week 4 (18-25 April)
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria Books 6-8
This is, I realize, a lot to take in in a week (we will return to the 2 bks. per week scenario for Books 10-12). So in the interests of concentrating discussion, this is what I wish to focus on in particular:
Monday:
6.proemium: an interesting glimpse in to Q. 's personal life
6.3: the section on risus (laughter)
Wednesday:
7.proem - 1 (i.e., Book 7, proemium through Chap. 1)
7.10
8.proemium
8.3.1-11
8.6
As promised, we will begin on Monday with brief discussion of Kennedy. Please pick out one or two of his remarks with which you agree or disagree.
On Monday, after considering what we learn about Q. in the proemium to Book 6, I'd like to turn our attention to the discussion of laughter in Chapter 3. In that chapter Q. introduces a number of terms or concepts, some of which will be familiar to you from Roman poetry or, e.g., Cicero's speeches. Pick one of these terms or concepts, and in addition to being prepared to expatiate on what is meant by the term, locate an example in any classical text you have read that illustrates the term. This can be from a poem, a speech, a passage from an historian, and in Greek or Latin -- any text, in other words. Be ready to present your passage to us (briefly), with an eye on the extent to which it illustrates (or doesn't) Q.'s own discussion.
[An aside on this: a paper on this passage, and on a similar passage in Plutarch, will be given in June at the (third) conference on 'Literary Interactions under Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian', a long-term project that has given rise to a substantial amount of work on the literary culture directly after the period in which Q. was working. Click here for an abstract of that paper; and here for more information on the project in general.]
On Wednesday: Book 7 focuses on a discussion of divisio. The first chapter constitutes an introduction, but at the end of that chapter (sections 41-63) Q. gives an example of a relevant controversia and an extended analysis of that example. Read this section (7.41-63) carefully with an eye toward evaluating Q.'s analysis -- i.e., what does he stress? is there anything he has missed? is it in fact, pedagogically, a good analysis?
Book 8 is very rich in material, but let's look especially at Chap. 3.1-11 (what's important or challenging about this part?) and Chapter 6, on tropoi/tropi or 'tropes'. In this chapter pick one trope you find particularly interesting, along with about 15-20 lines in that section to translate for us.
You perhaps have enough to do this week, so let me simply draw your attention to something you might want to read if not now then later, especially if you are annoyed with Quintilian. I speak of Peter Ramus, the 16th century French humanist. Among other things, Ramus wrote an treatise called Rhetoricae Distinctiones in Quintilianum, which was translated by Carole Newlands as Arguments in Rhetoric against Quintilian. Translation and Text of Peter Ramus's Rhetoricae Distinctiones in Quintilianum (Southern Illinois Press 2010, originally published in 1986 by Northern Illinois Univ. Press). The entire book is available online here. Of particular relevanace for this week's readings are pp. 130ff., where Ramus criticizes much of what you'll read in Book 8. The work as a whole proceeds through the entire Institutio, pointing out and discussing what's wrong with Q. at almost every step of the way. Ramus was himself very interested in pedagogy, and thought Q. misguided in almost every respect. It makes for very entertaining reading indeed. It also bears on the question of the reception of Q., something I'll talk ever so briefly about this week.