Reading Latin Research Articles

Better Reading Through Science: Using Research-Based Models to Help Students Read Latin Better

For the past several decades, education researchers have devoted a lot of time, energy, and practice to gaining an understanding of literacy and the cognitive processes that control it. This research has developed, evidence has converged around certain findings, and teaching methods for reading and literacy have changed for the better because of it. Unfortunately the information and research, by and large, has not trickled out of the realm of reading education. Nevertheless, there is a great deal that teachers of Classical languages can learn and gain from an understanding of the ideas that have evolved from this research. After all, reading is a key component to any Latin or Greek classroom, regardless of whether the teacher espouses a reading method, a traditional grammar-translation method, or an approach that focuses more on productive proficiency. By using the products of the past years of literacy research, Latin and Greek teachers can perform better as educators, since they will have a stronger construct for how reading works as a cognitive process and they will be more able to provide students with help and support by isolating problem skills and developing activities specifically to remedy those issues.

The Space that Remains: Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity by Aaron Pelttari

194 PHOENIX et celles qui le consulteront uniquement pour savoir s’il existe une source fragmentaire pour l’événement qu’ils recherchent. Sans être absolument nécessaire, l’organisation par ordre alphabétique et numérique des index énumérant les sujets couverts par chacun des auteurs aurait tout aussi bien fait l’affaire. De toute évidence, FRHist va devenir l’ouvrage de référence par excellence en matière de sources de fragments historiques romains et tous ceux qui, de près ou de loin, utiliseront cet ouvrage en conviendront. Le choix du système d’organisation et de numérotation de Jacoby comme méthode d’utilisation et de référencement des sources fragmentaires constitue en soi une contribution discrète, certes, mais tout aussi importante. À plusieurs égards, FRHist parvient à synthétiser les travaux des ouvrages qui le précèdent tout en réunissant l’examen linguistique de Chassignet et l’analyse historique de Beck et Walter en une même collection. Ce faisant, FRHist va pourtant bien au-delà de ces ouvrages, puisqu’il inclut des testimonia et tente aussi de retravailler, réorganiser et ajouter au contenu des travaux de Peter. Bien que les travaux de Peter, Chassignet et ceux de Beck et Walter demeurent d’une importance considérable, l’exhaustivité du FRHist à elle seule, ajoutée au remaniement en profondeur des fragments présentés, fera de ce livre un modèle du genre et l’ouvrage de référence pour toute recherche à venir. Tout comme Jacoby, la collection The Fragments of the Roman Historians de Cornell a un bel avenir ; les érudits de demain pourront continuer d’ajouter à son œuvre, mais il est fort probable que cette réalisation monumentale ne soit jamais remplacée ni surpassée. McGill University John Serrati The Space that Remains: Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity. By Aaron Pelttari. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology). 2014. Pp. xi, 190. Aaron Pelttari has written a short but very ambitious book. His stated aim (5) is to mark one of the major turns in the history of Latin literature, what he describes as “the transformation of Latin poetry within the fourth century.” In doing so, he writes with admirable clarity, shows sound knowledge of the central research questions and the relevant bibliography, and constructs a carefully plotted argument. This is a book that all those interested in “later” Latin poetry will have to read with care. Having been educated in how to read late antique poetry by M. Roberts in his influential The Jeweled Style (Ithaca 1989), we still need more literary monographs of a similar kind. Recently, C. Ware has transformed our appreciation of Claudian and his intertextuality (Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition [Cambridge 2012]), and now Pelttari offers us a rich volume that should help stimulate further research. Pelttari’s monograph contains an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion, followed by a list of works cited, a general index, and an index of passages cited. The volume is very elegantly produced. Central to Pelttari’s approach is an attempt to focus on the reader and the act of reading. He argues that in the fourth century c.e. a new relationship between author, text, and reader comes into being. While admitting that there are also strong elements of continuity with earlier periods, Pelttari believes that poets like Claudian, Ausonius, and Prudentius present their work in new ways, setting it up more explicitly than ever before as being in need of interpretation by active readers, BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 195 to such an extent that the structuring presence of the reader is central to the construction of authorial identity. This is a book about “the central importance of the reader within the textual world of late antiquity” (2), as Pelttari sets out to “describe a set of literary techniques and poetic forms that construct the reader’s involvement in the text” (4). In order to show what he means, Pelttari begins with Jerome and Augustine: as a commentator on the Bible the former is presented as...

The Space that Remains: Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity by Aaron Pelttari (review)

The Space that Remains: Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity by Aaron Pelttari (review)

Obeying the Truth: Discretion in the Spiritual Writings of Saint Catherine of Siena by Grazia Mangano Ragazzi

BOOK REVIEWS 657 not proof-texting but the deployment of “vocabulary drawn from the Scriptures to interpret and present the teaching of the Scriptures.” Although the quaestio format is not entirely absent from Aquinas’s scriptural commentaries, “Thomas’s attention remains fixed on the actual words of St. Paul, and the aim of the exposition is to explain why Paul uses the words he does and what they mean within the context of the Bible as a whole” (292). As tends to be the case with a collection of essays, the presentation is eclectic; but consequently it has the advantage of a diversity of perspectives, and it is ideal for provoking discussion in a seminar or in a course on Aquinas on Scripture. I have used it profitably to supplement a Latin readings course on Aquinas’s commentary. This volume, like its companion Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas, makes a unique contribution to Thomistic literature. JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P. Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception Washington, D.C. Obeying the Truth: Discretion in the Spiritual Writings of Saint Catherine of Siena. By GRAZIA MANGANO RAGAZZI. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. 224. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19-934451-2. Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80) is unique among the thirty-five doctors of the Church in that she was an illiterate and therefore wrote nothing. Illiteracy among women not of noble birth was not unusual in her day. She was, however, very intelligent, as can be seen in the works she dictated to secretaries: the Dialogue, 381 letters (8 of which were discovered in 1907), and 26 prayers. Every doctor of the Church has a particular doctrine or teaching, and Catherine is no exception. Unfortunately her doctrine has not been fully explored, particularly in the English-speaking world where even Dominicans have often passed over her teaching and dwelt solely on her life, frequently focusing on her bold stance before Gregory XI in Avignon when she insisted on his return to Rome. It is to be hoped that this situation will change now that her complete works have finally been translated into English. It is unusual, given her devotion to the papacy and her repeated references to the Real Presence, that Catherine has attracted the attention of Protestant scholars, some of whom have made significant contributions to Catherinian studies. Chief among them is the Italian Eugenio Dupré-Theseider, a 658 BOOK REVIEWS Waldensian, who undertook a critical edition of Catherine’s letters but who died after publishing only 88 of them in 1940. Earlier, in 1921, the French scholar Robert Fawtier set off a fire-storm of criticism with his historicalcritical examination of the primary biographical sources as well as Catherine’s writings. Still earlier, the Anglo-Catholic Vida Scudder, a professor at Wellesley College, published a translation of 64 letters in 1905 which is available on the Internet. The extent of Catherine’s popularity today can be seen in the publication in the 1998 collection of selected writings published by the Methodist devotional The Upper Room. Reliable presentations in English of Catherine’s spiritual thought are few. Although thematic studies have been written, many are flawed because writers have often lacked a grasp of the whole of her teaching along with knowledge of Catholic spiritual theology and the Dominican tradition. To understand her writings better, a knowledge of Italian is necessary not only because it enables one to study her actual words but also because it also allows access to the work of sturdy Italian Dominican commentators, the greatest of whom in recent times were Giacinto D’Urso, Giuliana Cavallini, and Alvaro Grion. D’Urso and Grion contributed significantly to the positio compiled prior to Catherine’s being proclaimed a doctor. Cavallini advanced Catherinian studies with her quasi-critical text of the Dialogue first published in 1968 and revised in 1995. The first edition was translated into English by Suzanne Noffke, O.P., in 1980 and remains the standard text. Much of Catherine’s thought in the Dialogue would be incomprehensible without reference to her letters and, to a lesser extent, her prayers. The oldest of Catherine’s extant letters was written in 1374 when...

HOW TO MAKE SCANSION EARN ITS KEEP IN SCHOOLS

Some years ago, when asked for comr. . .!nts on the new core syllabus for Senior Certificate Latin, I suggested that scansion be eliminated. My reasons were twofold: for one thing I felt that the mark allocation simply did not justify the amount of time needed to master the skill. (One is acutely conscious of cost-effectiveness these days.) Secondly, in 25 years of lecturing I have never found a first-year student - and I must include myself- who proved, by the ability to read Latin verse as verse, that scansion was anything more than an artificial exercise devised for its own sake. (The utilitarian argument again.) I am not now justifying the retention of a difficult hurdle for pupils to surmount, invoking the witty adage that invention is the mother of necessity. There is a practical reason to recommend scansion: clearly the sound of language was of major importance to the Romans, as readers used to read aloud to themselves, and the recitatio was a common event in the life of litterateurs especially under the early Empire. Since the current format of examination papers shows how far pupils' literary critical originality and frank opinion are encouraged, I now hope to give some practical help to teachers to prepare their charges a puero for an enjoyable and rewarding encounter with scansion.

A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO THE TEACIDNG OF LATIN

INTRODUCTION At the University of the Western Cape (UWC) there is a large number of students (about 300) who enrol for the introductory Latin course. Most of these students hope to become lawyers. It is with this in mind that one of the major aims of the UWC Latin course is to enable students to read with comprehension simple Latin texts e.g. 1he Institutes of Gaius, (cf. Kriel 1982). The prescribed handbook is Legal Latin - A Basic Course by Scholtemeijer and Hasse. There are, however, formidable obstacles in the way of enabling students to achieve the aim of reading Latin with confidence. Some of these are constraints faced by most universities, such as not more than 26 weeks of actual teaching time per year, large groups (80-120 students per group), some apathy because Latin is seen as a compulsory requirement, and often a very genuine fear of Latin as a very difficult subject to pass. At UWC yet another factor has become increasingly important over the past few years. A growing percentage of students are studying Latin through the medium of English while English is not their first language. (At the moment we have one: Afrikaans medium group, who are not similarly handicapped). This paper describes how we attempted during 1992 to make learning Latin a meaningful experience for our students; it also draws some conclusions based on the performance of the students and on feedback obtained from them by means of questionnaires about the course. The first section deals with problems generally experienced by students, the second with the methodology adopted to deal with these problems and finally there is an evaluation of the procedure and an indication of the road ahead. Contact time comprised two eighty minute lectures per week dealing with grammar and related experiences, and a weekly tutorial of 40 minutes for which students were divided into groups of approximately 20. There were approximately 15 tutorial groups, and each group maintained their tutor throughout the year. Students were required to write a weekly practical test for which they had to study the grammar and vocabulary introduced during the previous week. They could also practise their vocabulary and paradigms, and later in the year their setwork comprehension, on the CONSENSUS computer programme.

The Biblical text of Jerome's Commentary on Galatians

After an analysis of Jerome’s presentation of the scriptural lemmata in his Commentary on Galatians, their text is compared with variant readings in the tradition and the quotations of the Epistle in the exegetical sections. This sheds light on the complex transmission of the biblical text in this commentary, during which initial lemmata and expository quotations have both been subject to alteration. The earliest interventions precede the extant manuscripts of the work but can sometimes be identified through traces of substituted readings. Despite later preference for the Vulgate form of text, numerous Old Latin readings occur in both the editorial text and critical apparatus of the recent Corpus Christianorum edition. While not all of these are authorial, it is suggested that the significance of the non-Vulgate variants has been underestimated in this edition and that in many places it is possible to recover a form of biblical text closer to that used by Jerome. An appendix is provided of non-Vulgate readings in the commentary.

Un nouveau témoin vieux latin de Marc. Le ms. Durham, Cathedral Library A.II.10 + C.III.13 + C.III.20

The Durham Cathedral Library Manuscript A.II.10 + C.III.13 + C.III.20, contains several fragments of the Latin text of Matthew and Mark. Among the Markan fragments (1,1 - 6,6 + 8,39 - 14,55), section 2,12 - 3,21 preserves a large number of Old Latin readings. All these variants have been noted and compared with the other Old Latin manuscripts of Mark in order to characterize their text-type. The conclusion is clear: they belong to the European type, more precisely to the Welsh-Irish subgroup (attested by r1 = VL 14). In the Beuron system this new fragment will receive the number VL 19A.

After Bolaño: Rethinking the Politics of Latin American Literature in Translation

On 25 november 2012, when the united states novelist jonathan franzen opened mexico's feria internacional del libro de guadalajara, he spoke of his experience of reading Latin American fiction. Asked about the region's representation through literature in English translation, Franzen stated that, magic realism having now “run its course,” Roberto Bolaño had become the “new face of Latin America.” Franzen's words echo what has almost become a commonplace in the United States over the last five years: naming Bolaño “the Gabriel García Márquez of our time” (Moore), after the publication by Farrar, Straus and Giroux of the translations of Los detectives salvajes (1998; The Savage Detectives [2007]) and his posthumous 2666 (2004; 2666 [2008]). Bolaño is also considered by many writers, critics, and readers in Latin America to be “reigning as the new paradigm” (Volpi, sec. 3). If in the United States market, through the synecdoche of literary commodification, García Márquez's revolutionary Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude [1970]) and, specifically, the magic realism of his fictional Macondo came to stand in for the diverse literary projects of Latin American authors in the 1960s, one must ask if a similar operation is taking place with Bolaño. While the number of translated Latin American literary works continues to be limited and most “go virtually unnoticed” (“Translation Database”), the significance of Bolaño's place at the center of a new canon in translation is magnified and necessitates inquiring into how his critical success in the United States market may be shifting the politics of translation of other texts. As a critic announced in 2011, “a second Latin American literature Boom is happening … [that] probably owes its existence to the explosion of the late-Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, whose popularity re-opened the door to North American publishing houses for Latin American authors” (Rosenthal).

An On-Line Program for Intermediate Level Latin Readings

The purpose of this article is to introduce the on-line Intermediate Latin Program to potential users by describing the goals and elements of the site (see www.iona.edu/latin). The operation of the program is described in full, as well as its benefits for language education, its current uses, and suggestions for more creative uses in the classroom. Included throughout the article are observations on the program made by students, faculty, the design team, and assessors.

Introduction to Latin. Second Edition by SUSAN C. SHELMERDINE

254 BOOK REVIEWS of civil war in the Bellum Civile. Less convincing, though, is the chapter’s final section, where Dinter quotes at length Mediaeval and Renaissance sources that supplement the abrupt ending of Lucan’s epic. Connections between this section and the rest of the chapter are tenuous at best and, in the absence of any formal conclusion, these last ten pages leave Dinter’s own analysis feeling somewhat “open-ended.” Such disunity sadly characterizes Dinter’s monograph overall; it is difficult to see how the topic of each individual chapter relates to any other, not least because Dinter links his ideas at a metaphorical rather than literal level, which occasionally results in him placing undue weight on the concept of “anatomy.” The book also contains some typographical errors, of which I list the most glaring: “I am” for iam (146); “vigils” for vigiles (71 n. 90); repeated translation in nn. 90 and 91 (71); “in” for “is” (99 n. 56); a translation that exceeds the quotation from Caesar Civ.1.7.1 (135). The presence of such errors is a great pity because, alongside the disjointed argument, they mar a study that displays strong potential and could,ultimately,have had a lotto offer. ERICA BEXLEY The Australian National University, erica.bexley@anu.edu.au * * * Introduction to Latin. Second Edition. By SUSAN C. SHELMERDINE. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company, 2013. Pp. xvi + 376. Paper,$34.95. ISBN 978-1-58510-390-4. The many users of Shelmerdine’s introductory Latin textbook will welcome this new edition. It retains the good qualities of the first and revised editions, and also introduces some improvements. The second edition is again arranged in 32 chapters and can be covered in two 12-week semesters with a class meeting four times per week. In a short preface to the second edition Shelmerdine details the changes she has introduced. It is clear that she has responded to criticism of aspects of her first edition. She has integrated the changes in a sensible way. Thus the passive voice is introduced earlier, as are participles and the subjunctive. These changes will enable students to come to grips with more complex texts earlier and thus provide more reading practice in the last weeks of the course. Such practice is BOOK REVIEWS 255 offered. The last three chapters omit translation-into-Latin exercises and concentrate on reading Latin. More reading practice comes in four “Reading Chapters” where some of the continuous passages have comprehension questions. These chapters recapitulate the work in the preceding chapters and contain exercises involving derivatives as well as Latin phrases and abbreviations still used in English. Overall the approach remains as in the first edition: each chapter contains explanations of morphology and syntax as well as exercises. The exercises are still mostly translation from Latin or from English to Latin, butmanyof the sentences are taken from Latin authors (sources listed on 302–6) and thus students are gradually familiarized with the style of ancient authors and spared the artificial constructions of many introductory Latin textbooks. The number of other exercises where students are to supply endings or to identify agreement, case usage or parts of speech has been increased. The new vocabulary introduced in each chapter is again at the end of the chapter, but is followed by an additional section on derivatives. This aspect of learning Latin was confined to the “Reading” or revision chapters of the earlier edition and will be of use to students in memorizing meanings by linking them to English. Another welcome addition is the increased (from 38 to 48) number of “Readings.” These passages of “real” Latin from Classical authors, (the sources are indicated on pp. 301–2) are initially adapted to suit the level of the student, but later presented with minimal editing. These passages are very valuable in preparing students for the transition to the next level of Latin where they will probably be reading complete works of unadapted Latin. I have been teaching beginners’ Latin to university students for more than forty years and Shelmerdine’s new edition is the best work I have come across for introducing students within one academic year to...

Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, by Susanna A. Throop

Many modern historians of the crusades have suggested vengeance as one of the jostling, competing and complementary motives that encouraged support for crusading. Whether regarded as genuinely felt, promoted by propagandists or identified by apologists, this has been variously cast as vengeance for the depredations allegedly suffered by western pilgrims to the Holy Land or by eastern Christians under the infidel yoke; as revenge for the sufferings of Christ and His church; or, on campaign and in uplifting recruiting tales, as a response to fallen comrades and enemy atrocities. Parallels have been drawn with the various forms of secular retribution, legal compensation and social obligations to avenge wrongs done to family or lord. Now Susanna Throop has subjected these generalisations to a close reading of prominent Latin, Hebrew and western vernacular texts written between the First Crusade and the death of Innocent III, paying particular attention to the precise language that contemporaries employed (notably the root words vindicta, ultio and venjance). This provides the basis both for a description of the pathology of crusading vengeance and a chronological account of its popularity as an interpretation and justification of wars of the cross.

Introduction: Approaches to Childbirth in the Middle Ages

T h e f o l l o w i n g a r T i c l e s o r i g i n a T e d in a session titled “Childbirth in the Middle Ages” at the annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in 2006. We are not aiming to present an exhaustive treatment of the subject. Indeed, the majority of the original papers dealt with the periphery of europe. Maeve Callan’s focuses on Ireland, while those of Anders Frojmark and Nancy Wicker deal with Scandinavia. Donald Prudlo traces a historical trail from Italy to Ireland. Two more articles have since been added. Valerie garver writes about the Carolingian empire from the mid-eighth to the late ninth century, an area covering much of Continental western europe. Fiona Harris-Stoertz looks at legal and related materials from France and england in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. regrettably, we were unable to include articles using eastern european, Jewish, or Muslim sources. The articles deal with the experiences of women who were generally not literate, either in the modern sense of being able to read and write or in the medieval sense of being able to read Latin. The vernaculars these women would have spoken include romance, germanic, and Celtic languages. However, our evidence is rarely from the women themselves. The oral lore that must have been passed from mother to daughter, from women experienced in the delivery of infants to those giving birth for the first time, is lost. As pointed out by Frojmark, some women could be called midwives (obstetrices in Latin) to designate their function of assisting with a birth, even if they were neighbors and relatives rather than paid professionals. However, the authors of the written materials that provide evidence about childbirth were men—as often as not, celibate men without firsthand knowledge of the subject. In the vast majority of cases, they wrote not in the vernacular

Pinckney Benedict, A Gleeful Writer

Pinckney Benedict, A Gleeful Writer George Brosi Pinckney Benedict is a gleeful writer. He digs writing and takes a kind of boyish pride in the work he has created. His writing is deep and complex, yet the delight that goes into it is obvious to most readers. After all, he is a writer who recently claimed he was making comics at about the same rate as “legit stories.” The man who crafts a story whose main characters are Miracle Boy, Lizard, Geronimo, and Eskimo Pie, and who publishes that story in Esquire (1998) is obviously enjoying his craft. Sure, scholars can ruminate and analyze and expostulate about it all they want, but, fundamentally, Pinckney Benedict takes joy in his craft. “It fundamentally makes my day when something I’ve written gets up the nose of some stodgy academic or critic,” says Benedict. “That’s when I know I’m in the ballpark.” Benedict is acutely aware of his good fortune and quite humble about it. He has recently written on Facebook: The impulse to make up stories is a strange, largely worthless, self-aggrandizing, atavistic, and mostly ancillary function (I say this only about my own writing, which is self-evidently trivial—not about the writings of those . . . who are making vital, important literature) that I seem to be wired for, entirely without my volition or desire. That it has led to any kind of job or career or living or life is astonishing to me, and shows the true generosity at the heart of the world. Pinckney Benedict hasn’t had a very rough life. He is married to a beautiful, accomplished, and fun-loving wife, Laura Benedict, a successful writer in her own right, and is the father of two bright and beautiful children. He grew up on a 700-acre dairy farm in beautiful Greenbrier County, West Virginia. He enjoyed a splendid and prestigious education, and he has had great jobs throughout his career. As a boy, Pinckney Benedict’s favorite reading matter was a comic book series called “Weird War.” Even now, he claims he has been most influenced by comic books and science fiction and horror writing and also by television, movies, video games, and computer simulations. He still likes zombies and monsters and ghosts. He claims the main difference between his boyhood days as a reader and the present as a writer is that he now likes to throw in a little nudity and sex. The VS anthology published [End Page 18] by Press 53 this Spring includes a new comic by Benedict that pretty much incorporates all those elements—“Orgo vs The Flatlanders”—along with an over-layer of regional chauvinism. Orgo is the hillbilly king,” Benedict says, “and being a king of any kind seems like it would be fun and also difficult. When I think of Orgo, I think of Vercingetorix, the chieftain of the Averni who organized a revolt against the Romans under Julius Caesar. You know those guys seemed like hillbillies to the dominant culture, but they also kicked some serious ass. At the age of thirteen, Pinckney Benedict enrolled in The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, which graduated him in 1982. In high school Benedict was into Greek and Latin and assumed he would grow up to be a classicist. “Reading Latin and Greek was like code breaking, so it kept my mind occupied. And then I discovered that classical literature is full of the things I like: bawdy jokes and sexual escapades and monsters and wars.” Then he attended his father’s alma mater, Princeton. There, as a freshman, he discovered the stories of fellow West Virginian, Breece Pancake, who committed suicide in 1979. “Pancake’s work changed my life. Reading his stories, I knew not only that I wanted to write; I also suddenly knew what I wanted to write.” During his Princeton career, Benedict took several classes with Joyce Carol Oates, and she directed his thesis, seven stories that became the core of his first book. He graduated in 1986 and then went on to the prestigious University of Iowa writing program, which granted him a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing in...

Latin in Transition

This article examines the challenges and demands — particularly those relating to the reading of Latin texts in the original — faced by Classics students in England in their first year of university study. Arguing that the examination system in schools encourages rote learning of texts rather than the development of reading skills, the article outlines an approach adopted with first-year students at the University of Cambridge to help them develop the reading strategies, especially the predictive skills, needed to move from laborious translation and memorization to confident, fluent reading of Latin texts. After setting this approach in a wider context the article concludes with a brief consideration of lessons to be learnt from a project in Belgium to introduce the `linear' approach to reading Latin.

Literature, History, Periodization, and the Pleasures of the Latin Literary History of Late Antiquity

AbstractThis survey aims to look back on, and to serve as an invitation to, the study of the Latin literature of Late Antiquity. While Late Antiquity has now emerged and been validated as an important subject for historians, the same cannot be said for philologists, literary historians, and literary critics. Paradigms of decadence, degeneration, and decline still reign in the minds of many classicists (from whose ranks many ‘late antiques’ will ultimately be recruited), while many historians who come to Late Antiquity from the Middle Ages will remain just that, namely historians, and may not have the chance to acquire the linguistic formation to study Late Antique texts closely; perhaps not even the will to do so, for the study of medieval history through literary texts (as opposed to documents) is comparatively recent.1 The classical canon is restrictive, excluding, as it does, Christian and Jewish texts. The available larger scale literary histories may not be doing much to make scholars want to read texts from the late 2nd through the 7th century. They range from the dismissive acceleration through ‘fly‐over’ territory to the learned, objective, exhaustive, but dry. From the early 20th century the effete and decadent Des Esseintes's Late Latin reading list in Huysmans's A rebours still seems rather more stimulating. A much broader, but gradual approach, acknowledging that one cannot do everything, will ultimately be most constructive. Late Antiquity has an enormous amount of new and emerging material for study as well as great and complicated old problems to contemplate. Special pleasures include the study of the literary history of specific provinces, learning to work with hagiography, reading ‘substandard’ Latin (including papyrological and epigraphic texts), contemplating the long trajectory of the evolution from Latin to Romance, reading authors with highly distinctive voices, learning to love exegesis, and more. Self‐identification as ‘textual’ rather than purely ‘literary’ specialists is particularly empowering.

Bodies of Unsurpassed Beauty: “Living” Images of the Virgin in the High Middle Ages

As Marian devotion rose to prominence in the Latin West after the first millennium, images of the Virgin came to occupy central roles in Christian meditative and liturgical practices. A reading of Latin and vernacular miracles composed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suggests that such images were understood not merely as works of art or devotional aids but as surrogate bodies of the Virgin. Moreover, narratives involving women and men portray the source of these images’ miraculous power differently; while the feminine beauty of Marian images lent the Virgin power over male devotees, such images served a more maternal, protective function in their interactions with women. This essay reads Marian image-miracles in light of contemporary interest in the Virgin’s body and its ultimate fate, as evidenced by debates over Mary’s conception and bodily Assumption, and proposes that images may have offered medieval Christians a means of access to the Virgin’s body otherwise denied them.

New Directions in Arthurian Studies edited by Alan Lupack (review)

REVIEWS109 Syon. Likewise blood relationships in femalecommunitieswerecommon, as Marilyn Olivas work has shown. It seems doubtful that relationships between spiritual directors and nuns increased in number or intensity in the fifteenth century; this most traditional of relations is traceable from at least the early Middle Ages. The conflict Krug sees between 'Bridgettine appeals to a broader public' and the contemplative life does not take into account the Bridgettines' extremely apostolic spirituality. And the picture of literate practice at Syon is fuller than Krug says: Veronica O'Mara has identified a female Syon scribe, and it seems likely that the devotional cycle in MS Holkham Misc. 41 is by a Syon nun. (It is odd that St. Birgitta's revelations are cited from Cumming's 1929 edition instead ofRoger Ellis's 1987 one.) Nonetheless in this chapter, as elsewhere, the refusal to accept the conventional view produces unusual insights: for instance, the suggestion that Bridgettine reading was influenced by lay female reading choices, by friends and family, rather than the more usual vice-versa. The conclusion suggests very glancingly a further refinement on the topic that has provided the book's center. It sees female reading and writing as part ofwhat Krug calls 'practices that served familial (personal and spiritual) needs.' (She points out that this emphasis on usefulness can be found in the writing of the two bestknown female authors ofthe fifteenth century, Margaret andJulian.) The notion of women's reading as part of what might be labeled an ethic of use deserves wide currency; it will insure the circulation ofthis stimulating book MARY C ERLER Fordham University alan lupack, ed., New Directions in Arthurian Studies. Arthurian Studies Vol. LI. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002. Pp. ix, 168. isbn: 0-85991-642-1. $70. In October 2000 the University ofRochester sponsored Cameht2000:A Millennial Conference on the Arthurian Legends hosted by Alan Lupack. This volume memorializes that occasion and, while it cannot reproduce the joy ofthose festivities or the lavish graciousness ofAlan and Barbara Lupack, it does provide a valuable testimony to the scholarly contributions to the conference and a fitting witness to the state ofArthurian studies at the turn ofthe millennium. While space does not permit a detailed commentary on each ofthe essays, a relatively briefsurvey ofthe contents should provide sufficient evidence ofthe value ofthe volume. The title of Norris Lacy's revised plenary essay, 'Arthurian Research in a New Century: Prospects and Projects,' is an accurate guide to its content. In addition to reviewing the state ofArthurian scholarship, Lacy risks appearingacademically retro in making a powerful case for a return to the traditional discipline ofediting in a spirit that accounts for 'the richness oftextual traditions and transformations' (16). In 'Malory and His Audience,' P.J.C. Field turns his attention to the text that he knows probably better than anyone else in the world. Here he analyzes how the 'narrating voice' in direct address constructs the audience for the text in his own 'painful and sometimes erratic attempts to discover the truth' (31). Derek Brewer 110ARTHURIANA also directs his attention to this text in 'The Paradoxes ofHonour in Malory.' Brewer speaks with authority ofthe code ofhonour and attempts to balance without irony paradoxes, such as 'You must never tell a lie; You must tell a lie' (33). While this is a generally sunny essay, the dark side ofthe paradoxes cast a more ominous shadow over the argument than Brewer seems to intend, almost persuading us by the end that the 'bloody imperialist, sexist, colonialist' Arthur he attributes to the work of Felicity Riddy is a not inaccurate portrait. In '"Hie est Artur":Reading Latin and Reading Arthur,' Siân Eichard presents a masterful survey ofArthur in Latin texts and makes a powerful argument for the importance ofthese frequently overlooked texts and the importance ofpreserving Latin as a discipline. As the language of 'authority' and 'truth,' the Latin texts also raise significant issues ofthe status ofArthurian truth in the contested space between Latin and the vernacular. A more familiar text is addressed in the two part essay, 'Judging Camelot: Changing Critical Perspectives in SirGawain andthe GreenKnight' by Robert J. Blanch andJulian N. Wasserman. This essay presents in Part I...

Barnabas 4.6b: the Exegetical Implications of a Textual Problem

AbstractAmong early Christian writings the Epistle of Barnabas is remarkable for the claim that Israel lost its covenant forever at Sinai because of its worship of the golden calf. What is less clear is whether Barnabas's interest in this event is driven primarily by polemical, paraenetic, or abstract theological concerns. Contributing to this uncertainty is a notorious text-critical problem at Barn. 4.6b where the author first raises the issue of Israel's debacle at Sinai. Although commentators have shown a pronounced preference for the reading preserved by the Latin version of Barnabas, this article concludes that the deference shown to the Latin reading is unwarranted. The author postulates a conservative emendation of the Greek text as superior to the Latin reading on both transcriptional and exegetical grounds.

Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Editorial note regarding citations from manuscripts and publications A note on chronological terminology Introduction 1. Italian Renaissance education: an historical perspective 2. The elementary school curriculum in medieval and Renaissance Italy: traditional methods and developing texts 3. The secondary grammar curriculum 4. Latin authors in medieval and Renaissance Italian schools: the story of a canon 5. Reading Latin authors in medieval and Renaissance Italian schools 6. Rhetoric and style in the school grammar syllabus Appendices Bibliography Index of manuscripts General index.