dico, dico, dico

If you're looking for something to read over the holidays, you could do worse than this article (by Juliette Harrisson), looking at the use of Latin in pop culture. She manages to squeeze in references to Monty Python, Harry Potter, Buffy, Terry Pratchett, Yes Minister, The West Wing, Mel Gibson and others into a very interesting and readable piece. Here's a sample paragraph:

...it is because Latin is more familiar to audiences that it is frequently chosen over other ancient languages when spells or magical incantations are required. This is partly because Latin is so close to a number of modern European languages, so the spells sound ‘right’ – petrificus totalus, for example, ‘petrifies’ someone ‘totally’. Latin is sufficiently old and mysterious and, at the same time, sufficiently recognisable to make an effective magic spell that sounds plausible, yet out of the ordinary.

 

on radio and tv

I took two teams to the Australian Computational Linguistics Olympiad at Sydney Uni last week, and though neither team made it through to the next round they should be very pleased with their efforts (the year 10s got a 'gold medal', the year 9s silver). I haven't seen a copy of the questions yet, but apparently one of them was about ancient Etruscan, which would have been interesting.

ABC radio did a short story on the competition which you can listen to hear.

I also managed to catch an episode of the fantastic Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour last night, where he explores the Roman forum, Herculaneum and Pompeii. It's upon iview for another day - catch it while you can. I'm looking forward to seeing the next episode on Greece.

Virgil and the West Wing

If Catullus is like Seinfeld, Virgil must be like the West Wing. The writing is sharp and richly dense, issues are rarely black and white, and it deals with contemporary politics, complex characters and the human condition.

[Disclaimer: I have never actually seen an episode of the West Wing either, but sometimes it feels like everybody I know watches it- this post is based on their opinions]

Catullus and Seinfeld

The other day while marking some year 12 essays I had a revelation. It struck me that Catullus’ poetry is a lot like the TV show Seinfeld, while Horace’s is more like Sex and the City. Let me explain.

Seinfeld was a show which claimed to be about nothing, but in fact was about lots of stuff- based around the everyday lives and relationships of four friends. Sex and the City on the over hand claimed to be revolutionary television, but when you stripped away the rhetoric it too was about the everyday lives and relationships of four friends.

Catullus claims in his introductory poem that his poetry is also about nothing when he calls his poems mere trifles (‘nugas’). What I think he means is that his poetry doesn’t deal with any of the subjects which were considered in his time to be serious and important; subjects like mythology, gods, heroes, wars, history and even philosophy. Rather his poems are (generally) about his everyday life and relationships. Catullus was not the first to write this kind of poetry, he was heavily influenced by the Alexandrian poets of 200 or so years before (especially Callimachus)

On the other hand, Horace (in Ode III.30, a kind of epilogue, reflecting on his own poetic achievements) claims to have completed in his poetry a monument more lasting than bronze (‘aere perennius’) which will ensure his immortality as long as Rome exists. His boast rests on the assertion that he was the first (‘princeps’) to bring Greek poetry to Rome – though this is not strictly accurate. Catullus and the other poetae novi (whose work is for the most part sadly lost) also experimented with Greek themes, forms, meters and conventions in the same way that Horace did.

So, like Seinfeld, Catullus claims that his poems are nothing, when really they are something, and Horace, like Sex and the City, claims that his poems are revolutionary, when really they are heavily indebted to what has gone before.

[Disclaimer: I have never actually watched an episode of Sex and the City - this is just the impression I get of the show]