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Assignment for Monday, 04.06.20

Dear Satirists,

On Monday, April 6, our modified semester project officially gets underway. Please do the following.

  • Annotate, per the new instructions on our Semester Project page, Barbara Gold’s essay, “Juvenal: The Idea of the Book” (2012).
  • Submit your annotations to me as a PDF by email by noon (EST).

I’ll compile your annotations into one document, and circulate it before class on Friday, April 10, which is when we’ll discuss what people had to say.

Please let me know if you have questions.

DC

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Assignment for Friday, 04.03.20

Dear Satirists,

For Friday, April 3, please read and translate

  • Juvenal, Satire 1.87–131

This is as far in Juvenal’s first satire as we’ll be able to go this semester. Hopefully, you’ll have a sense of how he justifies the need for the genre in the imperial era.

Friendly reminder to turn in your scansion from Wednesday with any necessary corrections before today’s class — if you haven’t already done so.

DC

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Assignment for Wednesday, 04.01.20

Dear Satirists,

For Wednesday, April 1 (NO FOOLING!), please do the following.

(1) Read and translate

  • Juvenal, Satire 1.45–86

(2) Download, print (if possible), and fill in scansion drill 5. Remember, we’ll now be marking

  • long and short syllables
  • foot divisions
  • elisions
  • the principal caesura in each line
  • the bucolic diaeresis, where applicable

Given these trying times, you might have to get creative with your markings if you can’t print out the sheet. I believe in you. We’ll discuss the scansion in class, and then you can turn it in by email before Friday.

DC

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Assignment for Friday, 03.27.20

Dear Satirists,

For Friday, March 27, please read and translate Juvenal, Satire 1.14–44. Make use of our new commentators, Rudd and Courtney, to help you through the more difficult passages. We’ll be reading poem 1 in its entirety over the next few classes.

Based on today’s dry run of the first twelve lines, let me offer some tips:

  • Juvenal likes participles, and uses them to extend the life of his constructions. So be sure to trace the participle back to a key noun, whether expressed or unexpressed.
  • He also likes to drop references, so the commentary will be crucial to decoding them.
  • Because Juvenal goes for tightly-packed sentences, be sure to take a step back and try to appreciate the larger syntactical picture.

DC

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Assignment for Wednesday, 03.25.20

Dear Satirists,

For Wednesday, March 25, please do the following.

(1) Read G. B. Conte on Juvenal, who’ll be our exemplar of imperial satire. (I’ll distribute the chapter in class.) Because Conte lumps Juvenal together with his near-contemporary, Persius, you may wish to read only pages 467–8 (general context) and 474–80 (Juvenal’s life and career). Do note anything that resonates with you, so we can discuss it in class.

I’ll slowly be retooling the class, and hope to have everything updated by next Wednesday.

DC

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Assignment for Friday, 03.06.20

Dear Satirists,

For Friday, March 6, please do the following:

(1) Read and translate

  • Horace, Satires 1.9.45–80 — which will conclude Horace’s encounter with The Boor.

(2) Review J. L. Ferris-Hill’s essay on Satires 1.9 in preparation for today’s discussion. Pay particular attention to the pages relevant to your question.

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Assignment for Thursday, 03.05.20

Dear Satirists,

By 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, please do the following.

(1) Read J. L. Ferris-Hill’s article on Horace, S. 1.9.

(2) Bearing in mind the guidelines on our Opera page, generate a thoughtful discussion question about the essay and email it to Prof. Curley.

Once your question has been approved, the page numbers to which your queston pertains will be posted below, to aid your peers in formulating their questions.

DC

  • Rosenblum, pp. 435–6.
  • Padala, p. 437.
  • Savage, p. 439.
  • Hough, p. 442.
  • Schwartz, pp. 442–3.
  • Smith, p. 453.
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Assignment for Wednesday, 03.04.20

Dear Satirists,

For Wednesday, March 4, please read and translate

  • Horace, Satires 1.9.1–44.

Satire 9, “The Boor” (or “Bore”) is arguably the best known Horatian satire. As we did with 1.5, we’ll this poem in its entirety over the next two class periods.

NOTE: No scansion due for today, because of the recent Quiz 1.

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Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog

Per our discussion of Roman mime and buffoonery, behold the work of Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog, as he takes on both Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz, in a segment from the Late Show:

For more on Triumph (and his creator, Robert Smigel), Wikipedia is your friend.

DC

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Quiz 1 on Sunday, 03.01.20

Dear Satirists,

Friendly reminder that Quiz 1 is due on Sunday, March 1, 11:00 PM. Please email all sections as an attached PDF (but you can slide your completed scansion under my door).

General guidelines and the specifics for Quiz 1 are available on our Quizzes page.

DC

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