What are other people's "aha" moment when learning the language? Mine was Book 7 of the Aeneid, the opening lines. I remember thinking "You know, this stuff is just plain beautiful." I was already hooked, but that clinched it!
https://medium.com/in-medias-res/the-la ... J4B27vWWnw
Another nice article re: Aeneid
- Barry Hofstetter
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Another nice article re: Aeneid
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Cuncta mortalia incerta...
Cuncta mortalia incerta...
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Re: Another nice article re: Aeneid
I think for me it was presenting the exordium from the first Catilinarian oration (O tempora, O mores!) for the annual declamation contest that made sure I would never really stop loving the language and the literature written in it. For a brief moment I was transported back in time standing in front of bunch of Roman senators in need of a wakeup call and a very dangerous opponent in need of a serious talking to and I thought "so this is what it's like to orate!". Granted, given my performance it was a very small example of what it's like, but it demonstrated to me the power of language and its elegance when skillfully employed.
And so I carried Caesar, Cicero, Apuleius (and Homer) with me from one hotel to the next, year after year, decade after decade, and they were the best of bedtime companions (for a married man away from home!).
And so I carried Caesar, Cicero, Apuleius (and Homer) with me from one hotel to the next, year after year, decade after decade, and they were the best of bedtime companions (for a married man away from home!).
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Re: Another nice article re: Aeneid
Latin: Ovidius' Metamorphoses, the Daedalus & Icarus episode that I read a long time ago at school. I still remember the moment, when suddenly, after many hours of hard work, everything fell into place -rythm, sound, meaning- and I experienced the text as poetry for the first time and not just as a linguistic puzzle.
Greek: the first book of the Iliad in its entirety, in my view the never surpassed beginning of Western literature. Specifically the few lines at the very beginning where Apollo comes down upon the Greek camp to start a plaque: ὃ δ᾽ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς. And the moment Achilles throws down his staff to the ground while speaking to the Greek assembly. Both scenes alone warrant the time I've spent on learning Greek.
Greek: the first book of the Iliad in its entirety, in my view the never surpassed beginning of Western literature. Specifically the few lines at the very beginning where Apollo comes down upon the Greek camp to start a plaque: ὃ δ᾽ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς. And the moment Achilles throws down his staff to the ground while speaking to the Greek assembly. Both scenes alone warrant the time I've spent on learning Greek.
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Re: Another nice article re: Aeneid
For me it was the first chapter of Augustine's Confessions. I'd spent a long time with grammar and then struggling through Caesar, then picked up Augustine, read through a couple of pages, and said "hold the phone, this Latin is amazing!"
The same sense of wonder and delight came, *much* more strongly, when I first worked through Virgil's Eclogues a bit later.
The same sense of wonder and delight came, *much* more strongly, when I first worked through Virgil's Eclogues a bit later.