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The Golden Line: An Exercise that Changed an Academic Discipline
- Author(s):
- Kenneth Mayer (see profile)
- Date:
- 2018
- Group(s):
- Classical Philology and Linguistics, Education and Pedagogy
- Subject(s):
- Latin language--Study and teaching, Universities and colleges--Curricula, Latin language, Sixteenth century, Seventeenth century
- Item Type:
- Presentation
- Meeting Title:
- Colloque « L’exercice dans l’histoire de l’enseignement des langues »
- Meeting Org.:
- Société Internationale pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde (SIHFLES)
- Meeting Loc.:
- Université de Mons, Belgique
- Meeting Date:
- 17 et 18 mai 2018
- Tag(s):
- golden line, verse composition, Latin verse composition, history of scholarship, hexameter verse, Latin metrics, Latin pedagogy, Disciplinarity, Scholarship of teaching and learning, Early modern Latin
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/jq1a-tj41
- Abstract:
- What happens when an exercise succeeds too well? Could a school exercise designed to teach a foreign language also influence how a discipline interprets its central literary texts? For centuries in Britain, Latin versification was the pinnacle of both pedagogy and scholarship, the ultimate proof of a good teacher and a good pupil. Every day, schoolchildren had to compose dozens of Latin hexameters. And--at least since 1612--they were forced to compete in composing “golden lines.” Today, scholars around the world comment on golden lines in Vergil and Ovid in the mistaken belief that they represent an ancient poetic convention. This school exercise changed academic scholarship. Its propagation is due to its appeal to the consumers of the exercise, the students. From the 1600s until today, students have expressed pride and joy in identifying and composing golden lines. Today, Latinists worldwide analyze the main poets of the classical canon by the metric of the golden line. Student preferences for a school exercise have changed not only pedagogy but scholarly practice.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
exercises_the-golden-line-mons.pptx