Survey of Medieval Latin Literature

Catalog description

The Survey is designed to introduce participants to characteristic genres and discourses of Medieval Latin. The traditional focus is prose style and its implications for audience and genre from classical rhetoric to the humanist revival of a 'classical' style. A basic foundation in Latin morphology, syntax, and vocabulary is assumed. Intermediate and advanced topics in post-Classical idioms and syntax will be treated as they arise, with the goal of improving the facility with which students approach, read, and, especially, understand Latin writings from the Middle Ages. In addition to studying the practice(s) of style and Latin prose composition, modern approaches to stylistic analysis, and the intersections of style and identity, participants will gain a working knowledge of medieval theories of prose style as articulated in treatises on the genera dicendi, ars dictaminis, and ars praedicandi, as well as medieval (and modern) discussions of cursus and clausulae.