VAN ALSTYNE HIGH SCHOOL
2007-2008 LATIN LITERATURE/ CATULLUS and HORACE
AP SYLLABUS
Final 6 weeks of Latin III year
Latin III
A.) Poets and Poetry
Introduction to the Catullan Background – History, Literature and Politics
Rhetorical Strategies and Figures of Speech
Catullus 1: Dedication of the “libellus”
Catullus 22: Suffenus – poetic eye for the ‘cool’ guy
Catullus 35: Caecilius has some unfinished business
Introduction to Scansion: the Hendecasyllabics
EXAM
Catullus 36: Wholly crap?
Catullus 50 : Calvus and a poetry slam
Catullus 14a: The Poetic “Regift”
Catullus 44: Healed by a House
Sight Reading with questions (Ovid, Ibis 107-120)
EXAM
1st 6 weeks of Latin IV
B.) The Clodia Sequence
Review of Hendecasyllabics + Introduction to the Sapphic Meter
Catullus 51 – The First Glimpse of Clodia + short essay (2005 AP LL3)
Catullus 2, 3 - The “Sparrow” Poems
+ selected readings
-A.K. Hurley’s Catullus; careful cuttings from Ward Jones’ “Catullus’ Passer as Passer” Greece & Rome, Oct. 1998
-in translation - Meleager of Gadara 195; 196
- Dorothy Parker: “From a Letter from Lesbia”
Sight Reading with Questions (“A Dog’s Epitaph” Carmina Epigraphica 1175)
Catullus 5, 7 – The “Kiss” Poems
+ Steele Commager’ “The Structure of Catullus 5” Classical Journal 59 (1964)
Introduction to Writing the AP Latin Essay
EXAM (with 1st essay – short essay 2003 AP LL3 or long essay 2002 AP LL2)
Introduction to the Elegiac Couplet
Catullus 86: Can Quintia Compare? + short essay (2001 AP LL3)
Catullus 43: Mamurra’s Girl
Catullus 70: Wind and Running Water
Catullus 72: You Used to Say…
Catullus 8: Be Strong + long essay (1999 AP LL2)
Catullus 87: Who Better?
Catullus 109: A Lover’s Prayer
Sight Reading and Questions: Cicero, De Amicitia 20
EXAM
Catullus 85: I hate, I love
Catullus 60: What Lioness?
Catullus 76: If There’s Any Benefit…(+ Skinner’s “Disease Imagery in Catullus 76.17-
26”, Classical Philology 82, 1987)
Catullus 11: The Plow (+ more practice with the Sapphic)
Catullus 45: Septimius and Acme
Sight Reading and Questions: Catullus 62 6-19
EXAM + Creative Translation Project
2nd 6 weeks
C.) All’s Fair in Love and Horace
Introduction to Horace and The Augustan Era
Horace 1.5: Pyrrha (+Dave Alvin’s “Burning in the Water; Drowning in the Flame”)
+ short essay (2000 AP LL9)
Horace 1.22: Lalage and the Wolf
Horace 1.23: Chloe Flees + spot questions (2005 AP LL9)
EXAM
Horace 1.13: Jealousy and Lydia
Horace 1.25: Lydia - Behind Closed Doors (Comparison assignment with 1.23)
Horace 3.9: A Challenge + short essay (2003 AP LL9)
EXAM
D.) With Friends Like These…
Catullus 30: Alfenus the Cheat
Catullus 40: Ravidus and the Iambs
Catullus 116: Punishment for Gellius + long essay (2006 AP LL2)
Catullus 10: Rufus and His Girl (2003 AP LL2)
Catullus 49: A Note to Cicero + a discussion of Fredricksmeyer’s “Catullus 49, Cicero,
and Caesar”, Classical Philology 68, 1973
Sight Reading and Questions: Cicero
EXAM
Catullus 96: Calvus’ Girl
Horace 1.24: A Note to Vergil + spot questions (2002 AP LL7)
Sight Reading and Questions: Vergil Aeneid 12.855-868
Horace 2.7: Home from the War + spot questions (2004 AP LL7)
EXAM
3rd 6 weeks
Catullus 84 (H)Arrius
Catullus 77: Rufus the Pest + long essay (2001 AP LL2)
Catullus 69 Deodorize! + short essay (2006 AP LL3)
Catullus 12 Asinius and the Napkins
Catullus 13 An Odd Invitation to Dinner
EXAM
Sight Reading assignment
Horace Satire 1.9 + Comparison with Mark Twain’s Ch. 20, “An American – Sure” and
“A Parson Captured” from A Tramp Abroad + reading/response to T. Mazurek’s “Self-Parody and the Law in Horace’s ‘Satires’ 1.9”; from The Classical Journal 1997
E.) Much Ado about… Horace
Horace 1.1: Dedicated to Maecenas + spot questions (2006 AP LL9)
Discussion of the priamel; compare with Shakespeare Sonnet 91.
Create your own priamel project.
Horace 3.30: The Monument
+ essay (1999 AP LL9) Discussion of the sphragis and comparison with Shakespeare Sonnet 18
Horace 1.37: The Ode to Cleo
Horace 1. 38: Persian Pomp and Circumstance
Sight Reading assignment
SEMESTER EXAM
2nd Semester - 4th 6 weeks
F.) Catullus and a Small Epic
The dactylic hexameter and Catullus’ “epic” style.
Catullus 64 ll. 50 - 253
+ discussion from a selection of DeBrohun’s “Ariadne and the Whirlwind of Fate: Figures of Confusion in Catullus 64: 149-57” Classical Philology 94, 1999
G.) Philosophy and Mortality
Horace 1.9: Soracte
Horace 1.11: Carpe Diem + essay (2001 AP LL9)
Horace 2.3: Keep Calm!
Horace’s Epicureanism + M. Shermer’s essay “The Soul of Science” – with essay prompt.
5th 6 weeks
Horace 2.10: The Golden Mean + essay (2002 AP LL9)
Horace 2.14: The Years Fly By!
Horace 4.7: Spring Returns + essay (2001 AP LL7)
Notes on Housman from J.D. McClatchy’s introduction
EXAM
Sight Reading assignment
Catullus 101: Lament for a Brother + essay (2000 AP LL3)
Catullus 65:Hortalus and Grief
Catullus 68 1-40: Writer’s Block and Grief
EXAM
Sight Reading assignment
H.) Homeward Bound
Catullus 46: Departures
Catullus 31: Again, Sirmio
Catullus 4: The Vessel at Rest + Vergil’s
EXAM
Horace 3.1 Why Should I Change? + essay (2005 AP LL7)
Horace 3.13: The Fountain
“Horace’s Healing Spring” D. Soren, F. Romer Archaeology Jan./Feb. 1999
Senior Essay – A Personal Responce to Horace’s Epicureanism
Sight Reading assignment
6th 6 weeks
AP Exam Review
Prose readings from Cicero
AP EXAM
FINAL EXAM