Sappho’ fresco from Pompeii, via Wikimedia Commons.
At the age of fourteen, 我刚上高中入门课几个星期, 我一下子就爱上了拉丁语, the grammar, the puzzles it had in store. Before the end of the first semester, 我知道我想学习它，并用我的余生来教授它. However, it was not always easy to love. As a female student, I found it frustrating to go through the curriculum reading only of ancient Greek and Roman men, of heroes and their great deeds, 在维吉尔和奥维德等男性作家的笔下代代相传. 除了受害者和恶棍，那些女人在哪里? Where were their voices? The answer, as it turned out: not in the materials geared toward intermediate to advanced high school Latin students. 在这个奋斗过程中，我有了一个梦想:我想写一本拉丁文教科书, and I wanted it to be about women. But I was not ready yet. 直到我来到永利app新版本官网地址, where I would soon begin a project that would launch me into the world of undergraduate research.
刚上永利app新版本官网地址一年级的时候，我找到R教授. Scott Smith with this ambition of mine, and he helped me narrow my focus on something that had not been done before and would combine our research interests: Roman women and travel. 近年来，以女性为主题的拉丁文读本层出不穷, special focus has not yet been given to the topic of female mobility and the literary sources that document women’s movement around the Mediterranean. The seed of a textbook took root, and for the first time, I felt like I could achieve something real.
Setting Sail
Encouraged and mentored by Professor Smith, I applied for, received, and successfully completed an exploratory research project via the January Research Opportunity Program, 由全球种族和社会不平等实验室提供, which gave this little textbook a name: Roman Women on the Move. During that January, I learned, among other valuable research skills, the process of writing translation guides (called commentaries) for Latin texts, which requires the making of a thorough Latin英译笔记，帮助他人翻译. I first worked 索尔皮西亚(古希腊女作家)的一首诗 first century BCE)和一个名叫奥蕾莉亚娜的女人的葬礼题词, both involving female movement through space. After that, I was hooked.
感觉到了这种势头，我继续写评论(1).e., translation guides) for the remaining five of Sulpicia’s poems, fascinated also by her status as one of the only female Roman authors with extant work, surviving through a body of poetry chiefly authored by the more well-known—and male—Tibullus. 在此过程中，我与史密斯教授分享并回顾了我的工作. The Research Experience Apprenticeship Program (REAP) through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research was the perfect next step in the textbook’s journey, 在申请期间，我们制定了一个真正的计划. Over the course of the summer, I would translate and produce commentaries for texts suggested by Professor Smith about Roman women and travel. 这些拉丁文本来自不同的作者和来源, 从墓碑上的铭文到彼此之间的信件 friends. To contextualize my research, I would consult the scholarship on not only Roman female mobility but ancient travel more broadly.
Through REAP, I set out to create what ended up being twenty-nine pages’ worth of Latin commentary, all to be included in, and indeed form the basis of, this textbook-in-the-making.
The Straits
Now, what exactly goes into such a commentary? 学习拉丁语和古希腊语的学生可能对它们再熟悉不过了, but beyond that, people do not usually run into them. In an intermediate commentary to a Latin text, 学生通常会学习大量的拉丁语, then below that, a selected Latin-to-English vocabulary, 以及解释具有挑战性的语法和参考文化的注释, mythology, or history embedded in the text. In more advanced commentaries, which range in helpfulness, vocabulary help fades away, 除了解释最棘手的语法外，还提供了所有其他帮助, 而评论则更多地集中在对文字的学术性旁白上, phrases, and references. [要查看教科书中包含的《永利app新版本官网地址》的示例注释， click here]
The model of commentary I follow for this research project 跌价处于中高级到早期的区间，其中 students normally reach in their third year of Latin study. Each commentary begins with an introduction to the text, a brief contextualizing summary incorporating and glossing lesser-known vocabulary found in the Latin to preemptively provide students with definitions. Then there is the block of Latin text, 我给它们加上了长音符(元音上表示它们长度的标记), 这可以为某些单词的句法功能提供线索), 在高级水平以下的文本中包含哪些内容是好的做法.
在下面，我提供了语法注释 and assist 更高级的拉丁语法概念和结构, 以及那些学生们容易生疏和忘记的东西, 这样他们就能更容易地把拉丁语翻译成英语.
这是解说中最难也是最有趣的部分, because I must not only understand how to translate the text and know the function of every last word, 但也要预测不同水平的学生的难点, 因为我已经对这门语言进行了五年多的深入学习. To make sure I am not leading students astray, I check my translations against others and go over my grammar notes with Professor Smith, 有时我需要帮助来发现句子的语法细微差别.
Below the grammar notes, I create a selected vocabulary by supplying and defining all the Latin words appearing in the text that do not 出现在狄金森学院核心拉丁词汇表中, which essentially contains the first 500 or so most common Latin words that a student is likely to encounter in their study of the language, and therefore provides a good estimate of words intermediate-advanced students will already know. Farther below that, I include a literal translation for teachers and students to check their work against.
But writing commentaries was not all grammatical fun and translation; I also had to read. 围绕一个我知之甚少的话题写评论, namely ancient travel, 要求我查阅一些现有的奖学金, such as a lengthy book aptly titled Travel in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson. Readings such as this one gave me the context and confidence to consider the situations of the women featured in my commentaries more deeply. Occasionally, I even came across an unexpected inscription or passage to add to the project’s “to-include” list, the running and growing brainstorm of texts with potentially suitable content that I keep for future commentaries I wish to write beyond those I completed for the REAP.
The Journey Continues
十八篇评论，我还有很长的路要走 Roman Women on the Move is anywhere near complete; this textbook is still at the beginning of its own journey. 要添加的文本越来越多，范围也可能越来越广, I am excited to see how the project evolves, 我期待着继续我永利app新版本官网地址女性和旅行的研究. Already, 我已经把我对索尔皮西亚诗歌的评论寄给了我的高中拉丁语老师, 谁教他们时，学生的反应是积极的.
当我深入研究罗马女性的流动性时，身体和 potentially social, I hope to pilot my work beyond Sulpicia and show those beginning in classics how the lives of women extended beyond the household 通过出版一本完整的教科书. In its digital form, 这本教科书可以通过迪金森学院评论免费获得, 这里有越来越丰富的拉丁语资源. Moreover, such a conduit for my research aligns with the motivations lying at the heart of my work: to show that the ancient world, and by extension the classics, is for everyone, not just those with privilege of gender or class—and that there is a world beyond what is explicitly crafted for us by our ancient male authors that is well worth exploring.
I would like to thank the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research and particularly my donors, Mr. Dana Hamel and the Patricia M. Flowers ’45 Scholarship Fund, 感谢他们的慷慨使这个项目成为可能. I also thank the Global Racial and Social Inequality Lab for first granting me the opportunity to do research. 最后，但并非最不重要的是，我把maximās grātiās送给我的导师R教授. 斯科特·史密斯，感谢他无尽的支持和指导.
Author and Mentor Bios
经典:来自新罕布什尔州德里的古典语言文学专业， Jillienne Robinson-Warren 会在2026年春季毕业并获得文学学士学位吗. She is a member of the University Honors Program and the Eta Sigma Phi Classical Honors Society. Her classics research was funded by the January Research Opportunity Program through the Global Racial and Social Inequality Lab at UNH and by the Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research. Jillienne对拉丁语法和文学的热爱吸引了她参与这个项目, 以及她的导师的鼓励, Dr. R. Scott Smith. Through these experiences, she gained insight into the collaborative nature of classics research and developed analytical skills, such as how to approach translation, that will aid in her future academics and career. 她的翻译最近在她的高中拉丁语课程中进行了试点, 她很高兴为教育工作者创造了一个具体用途的资源. Jillienne decided to submit her work to Inquiry in the hopes that it will inspire other undergraduates to follow their own independent research goals at UNH. After graduation, 她计划获得古典语言学博士学位, then pursue her passion for sharing the language with others by becoming a high school or collegiate Latin teacher.
Dr. R. Scott Smith 是古典文学教授兼古典文学系主任, Humanities, 以及永利app新版本官网地址的意大利研究, where he has taught since 2000. 他的主要研究领域是古代神话和神话, 特别关注神话学的交叉点, space, and geography. 他是希腊神话数字数据库的联合主管， MANTO, and produces the podcast The Greek Myth Files. He is also undertaking a related student-supported project to translate mythographical narratives in ancient texts. Hot off the presses is his publication of Mythographical Narratives (historiai) in the D Scholia to Homer’s Iliad, which is 以前未翻译的故事的主要译本. In addition, Dr. Smith has been interested in Latin pedagogy and best practices in teaching the language. He has supervised more than ten undergraduate students with research opportunities through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, and is proud of his students’ research, 包括作为本文主题的拉丁文教科书. Writing for Inquiry, Dr. Smith believes, is vitally important in helping students find ways to take their detailed and narrow work and translate it into forms accessible to the masses.
Copyright 2024 © Jillienne Robinson-Warren
