Intermediate-Advanced Conversational Ancient Greek: Iliad I with Prose Paraphrase

Wednesday., 8pm (U.S. Eastern Time)

Course Description: In this course participants will read roughly half of book I of Homer's Iliad by way of Paideia's Dolphin edition, which includes scholiast notes and an amalgam of two Byzantine paraphrases into Attic-Koine Greek. For the first 50 or so lines of the text, the instructor has transcribed the Greek-Greek notes from the 19th century Doukas edition, which will help participants get used to explaining Homeric Greek with Attic-Koine grammatical and lexical terminology. The experience should be very conducive to building one's copia verborum: e.g., recasting participles with conjunction + finite verb clauses (and vice versa), recasting with genitive absolutes, paraphrasing an expression of purpose in the text with all the other ways of expressing purpose, defining Homeric vocabulary with Attic synonyms and definitions, etc. By going slow and savoring, the participants will be able to practice not only these nitty gritty linguistic skills, but also have time to discuss the text as literature, pointing out poetic figures and discussing the successful and unsuccessful speeches in terms of classical rhetoric.

DETAILS

Level: This course is intended for those who have had a few decent experiences with speaking Ancient Greek.

Textbook: Paideia's Dolphin edition of Iliad I. Instructor will supply audio files of both text and paraphrase.

Sections capped at: 5 students. If the course is sold-out, please fill out this waiting-list form.

$250.00 Quantity

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INSTRUCTOR

DAVID RING

David Ring teaches Latin and Ancient Greek as living languages by using an eclectic mix of methods, ranging from the insights of Renaissance Humanist pedagogy (especially the advice of Erasmus) to the Direct or Nature method to (first and foremost) Teaching with Comprehensible Input. Be it a discussion in Latin or Greek about a beautiful painting, or personal life conversation, or solving riddles, or paraphrasing poets into simpler prose, or storyboarding Lucian's True Stories -- David and his students aim to get lost in the joy of what they are doing, such that they forget they are speaking Latin or Ancient Greek. He believes that the purpose of liberal education is to help young people grow in self-knowledge -- both individual and cultural --, to help them form sharp intellects, wise judgment, and greatness of soul. He believes this is best done via direct encounters with the greatest minds and greatest stories of the last 3,000 years.