Classical Chinese Primer
A Little Horatian Satire

The dominance of modern-Chinese based curricula may be inevitable in the present political climate, but it is objectively strange all the same. In practice, it prevents the classical language from being acquired by anyone who does not have a use for the usual prerequisite: two or three years of the modern language. The comparative philosophers and historians, the students of ancient technology, and those moved by mere intellectual and literary curiosity, are thus excluded at the outset. Is it healthy for the field, to have nobody to talk to in these neighboring disciplines? And what of the future Chinese classicists themselves, whose linguistic antennae are being tuned, by arduous toil, to a point 2,000 years later than the texts of primary interest to them?

What if the Mediterranean Classicists did as the Sinological Classicists do? An American college freshman with perfect SAT's and a burning desire to investigate the metrics of Horace walks into the Classics program advisor's office and announces her goal. She expects a welcome, and a fast-track Latin class. Instead, she gets the following:

Advisor [with his welcoming smile turned on]: Well, of course, that's a very natural impulse, a commendable impulse, but we have found over the years that a really firm command of Latin requires a solid grounding in the basic prerequisite, which is modern French. Not only is this linguistically a much better platform than English, from which to acquire a truly fluent grasp of Latin, but as a living and experienceable language, French can be mastered more fully than an extinct language like Latin ever can. We find that this living-language mastery carries over effectively into the pursuit of Latin over the whole course of an individual career. Besides, much of the best scholarship on Rome is written in French, many important conferences are held in France, and the tradition of classical studies is much more firmly rooted in French civilization than it is here in America, so that acquiring the French experience of these matters gives one's own classical studies what I may call a more secure psychological foundation. If one simply [deprecating little smile here] plunges on one's own into the study of Latin, one is liable to waste years chasing some perhaps original but ultimately unproductive notion, whereas by first acquainting oneself with the the living tradition, one finds out where the active work is going on, what the approaches are, what gets into print, and so on. This is of major importance in establishing a career.
Student: But I have these great SAT's! When can I start Latin?
Advisor [parental]: It's precisely your wonderful test results which promise a major career, and prompt us to be careful to establish your scholarly basis as soundly as possible. You will start with modern French, intensive, going to nonintensive in the second year. Normally a student would begin Latin in the third year of the program. . .
Student: The . . . third . . . year??
Advisor: . . . but in your case [ingratiating smile], with those splendid SAT's, I would certainly recommend the deluxe program, which involves a junior year in Paris, with side trips to the famous Roman ruins, where you can get a firsthand sense of the power and the engineering skill of the Roman state, and also [confidential tone] take in some most delicious local cuisine. [Formal again] Now, usually our junior year abroad students come back to campus all fired up to take Latin in their fourth year . . .
Student [interrupting]: Fourth year? But I'm already fired up! I love Horace! I've been so impressed with reading his poems in English, and I simply can't wait to experience them in his own language, and . . .
Advisor [interrupting too]: Yes, yes, exactly, and it's that direct sensuous experience that is so essential in the study of any poetry. You see, Horace lives in the very fiber of every French poet of consequence, and for the senior thesis - of course, that occupies the entire senior year to the exclusion of regular coursework, and is an immersion in a topic of vital relevance to the long-term career plans of our most promising students - for the senior thesis topic, I should be inclined to recommend an in-depth study of Mallarmé . . .
Student: You mean I can't start Latin within the undergraduate curriculum??
Advisor [quickly]: No problem at all; I have not the slightest doubt but that for so outstanding a student, we can arrange a full graduate fellowship . . . teaching advanced French literature, for which [meaningful look] there is always a great demand. Of course, Latin is a wonderful language, a wonderful language, but at the same time [smiling at his own invincible logic], one must nourish the living language skills that one has with such effort acquired. And so, to be sure that our students maintain their momentum in French, we have adjusted our graduate instruction so that all courses, including Latin, are given in French . . .
Student: Do I understand you to say that after five years in this program I will be reading Horace in French?
Advisor [quickly]: Oh no, not at all; in Latin, of course. Pronounced in the best French national style, and discussed by the class in fluent French. Now let's see, ours is a rigorous and not a slapdash program, every stone in the tower being carefully laid on the one below, and so after a thorough beginning in Caesar, whose Gallic Wars are a wonderful counterpart to one's own experience of that same countryside, we reach Horace, let me see; yes, there is a series of his poems, or Chansons as we like to say, somewhere here in the third-year graduate syllabus . . .
Student: Four . . . plus three . . . is . . .
Advisor [a bit apologetic; coming to the crux]: Exactly, exactly, and so of course your doctoral dissertation cannot be precisely on Horace, as such, but you will find that a dissertation on, say, the influence of Horace on Mallarmé will have ever so much more value in the, ah, the job market, and . . .
Student: [walks down the hall and signs up for computer science].
Advisor: [works up his welcoming smile to face the next advisee].

 

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