Latin 520 ('Schooling the Emperor'): Assignment for Week 5 (26 April-1 May)

• Read:

Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria Books 9-10. Unusally, I'd like you to have read both books by Monday.

With that in mind: skim through Book 9 and devote most of your energies (and especially your Latin energies) to reading Book 10, one of the most important and certainly the most read book in the IO (in it Q. lays out what constitutes in essence a 'reading list' for the budding orator). See below.

• Ponderanda:

On Monday -- briefly -- I'd like to consider especially Quintilian's quite long quotation of Cicero (from De oratore and then Orator) in Chap. 1 (beginning in section 26). Why do you think Q. feels it necessary to quote Cicero at this point, and at such length? Russell notes that the remainder of the book constitutes a kind of commentary on these remarks by Cicero. Are there places where Q. usefully expands on or modifies something Cicero says? Is there any sense, in other words, in which Q. disputes the authority of Cicero on figurae?

But starting on Monday as well -- and concluding on Wednesday -- we will consider Book 10 carefully as follows. Each of you will be responsible for summarizing Q.'s views and recommendations on the following (about 10-12 minutes per person, or so...less if you feel you can do it in less).

Megan: Greek epic and drama

Luo: all other poetry

Danny: Greek prose

Emma: Latin epic and drama

Anna: all other poetry

Chad: Latin prose

Consider not only whom Q. recommends we read but why? What does each genre offer to the orator? Are there noticeable omissions...and if yes, how would you account for them?

• Secondary reading:

Please read for Wednesday Elaine Fantham's 'Latin Criticism of the Early Empire' in G. Kennedy, ed., The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 1, 274-96 (Cambridge 1990). This is available electronically here (I believe you may have to be on the UW system to get to this), and I'll also post the pdf on our webpage.

This essay is not exclusively about Quintilian, but it does include a good section on him and on Book 10 in particular. Plus, in addition to covering a number of other authors prior to and after Quintilian, she has a good -- and what will prove to be relevant -- discussion about Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. Useful, that is, for Quintilian proper and things you'll be reading shortly, but also useful as a general survey of the sort of things early imperial writers considered important with respect to reading and understanding literature.