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2014/15 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

CLAS3361 Ovid the Innovator: Linguistic Pathway

20 creditsClass Size: 25

Module manager: Dr Bev Back
Email: b.back@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2014/15

Pre-requisites

CLAS1902Fast-Track Latin 2

This module is mutually exclusive with

CLAS3360Ovid the Innovator

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Module summary

Selected portions of the text in the original Latin will be analysed in particular detail, with emphasis on fluent translation and understanding. In lectures, the translations used will be Tristia, translated by P. Green (Ovid: The Poems of Exile, California 2005); Fasti, translated by A. Boyle and R. Woodard (Penguin Classics, 2000); selected epistles from Heroides will be provided on handouts.The module is worth 20 credits and runs over two semesters, with one lecture per week and a total of 10 seminars which will be focused principally on the reading of text in the original. For further information, contact the Department of Classics (email:classics@leeds.ac.uk; website: www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/; telephone: 0113 343 6786).

Objectives

On successful completion of this module, students are expected to be able to situate Ovid's poetry in its literary, socio-political and historical contexts; compare and contrast the three poems under consideration, with each other, their predecessors and other works in the Ovidian corpus; use close reading techniques to produce critical appreciations of passages from these texts; identify and evaluate literary critical approaches, especially narratology, intertextuality and reception theory; select evidence for, and explore, Ovid's treatment of themes such as gender, gods and cosmology, mythical heroes and Roman kings, and Augustan Rome; and demonstrate subject-specific skills, including an ability to carry out close textual analysis and translation of selected portions of the original Latin text of Ovid.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module students will have developed knowledge of linguistic aspects of the text through close reading of selected portions in the original language.

Skills outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students are expected to be able to:

- demonstrate a range of subject-specific skills, including an ability to analyse critically various forms of texts (especially different genres of literature) and relate them to each other where appropriate and including an ability to carry out close textual analysis and translation of selected portions of the original Latin text of Ovid.
- demonstrate a range of transferable skills, including written expression, the use of IT resources and the organisation of personal study.


Syllabus

This module will focus on three innovative works of Ovid: Heroides, a set of letters from mythical heroines to their absent lovers; Tristia, a series of poems in which the exiled poet laments his plight among savages at Tomis; and Fasti, a poetic treatment of the Roman calendar and its religious festivals in the age of Augustus. But nothing is quite as it seems with Ovid. The mythical heroines in Heroides invite us to question the authority behind ‘familiar' myths; the poems in Tristia are so full of poetic flair as to make some doubt whether Ovid was ever exiled at all; and Fasti outwardly celebrates and subtly criticises Augustan Rome in equal measure. These poems will be studied in their own right and, more generally, as a means of assessing Ovid's skill at manipulating myth, his exile and exilic persona, and his troubled relationship with Augustus and Augustan Rome.

Teaching methods

Delivery typeNumberLength hoursStudent hours
Lecture201.0020.00
Seminar101.0010.00
Private study hours170.00
Total Contact hours30.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)200.00

Private study

15 hours reading of Ovid in translation
10 hours reading of select secondary bibliography
70 hours on translation of set texts
45 hours - on commentary
30 hours - exam preparation

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Student progress will be monitored:

- at an informal level, through lectures, seminar contributions and detailed module questionnaire;
- at a formal level, through the summatively-assessed assignment

Methods of assessment


Coursework
Assessment typeNotes% of formal assessment
EssayNot more than 2000 words40.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)40.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated


Exams
Exam typeExam duration% of formal assessment
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc)2 hr 00 mins60.00
Total percentage (Assessment Exams)60.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 27/01/2015

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