The eulogy for David Morgan delivered by Nancy Llewellyn at his funeral on Saturday. I met David in 1995 when we were both just getting started in the peculiar and often delightful academic microclimate that I have come to call the Latinosphere, that is, the global community of classical enthusiasts who cultivate Latin by speaking [...]
Category Archives: Latin
In Paradisum David Morgan.
08-Feb-13There is not much that can be done in the face of our certain mortality. Two nights ago I heard from friends that David Morgan, professor of French Literature at Furman University and for several years one of the teachers at Rusticatio Virginiana, lay on his deathbed and had probably only hours to live. I [...]
Farming and Classics.
01-Jan-13There exists a memoir entitled Of Farming and Classics, which to judge from the title seemed like something I might find relevant. I wrote a review of it for the University Bookman.
Cord Jefferson looks at some great Pompeian graffiti (where can we get the Latin for this, short of having a copy of the CIL in one’s study?) and comes to the (inescapable) conclusion that people are just as dumb, sex-obsessed, filthy-minded, and lowbrow as the worst television or rap music or brainless teenagers you can [...]
The Appian Way, by Bob Kaster.
28-Jun-12Robert Kaster’s The Appian Way, Ghost Road, Queen of Roads was my companion for a day here in the woods, in between spurts of gardening and writing. The book is short – 120 pages – and generally delightful. It consists of some scattered historical anecdotes and observations coupled with a few bursts of travel writing. [...]
Lucretius, Poggio, Greenblatt, Grafton.
03-May-12A nice review, intelligently written as always, by Tony Grafton of Stephen Greenblatt’s book on the discovery of Lucretius by my favorite humanist Poggio Bracciolini. Poggio struck me from the first time I encountered him in the form of his deeply sympathetic and humane letter describing the sadistic and dishonorable burning of Jerome of Prague [...]
Latin-teaching Blogging.
29-Jan-12Since I’m back in the classroom, I’m going to put up a few pieces about the nuts and bolts of Latin teaching, as I go through various topics through the school year. ”Write what you know.”
Botanical Latin R.I.P.?
02-Jan-12There are new regulations in place as of 2012 which allow new species to be described in the vernacular. Since Latin-death, like climate change, tends to accelerate rather than slow down, this could mean the whole edifice will come crashing down. That said, I suspect a lot of this is aimed at speeding up the [...]
Quote of the Day.
07-Sep-11“Well the fact is everything in life is uncertain, friends, but you can’t just go around using the subjunctive all the time.” -Reginald Foster
Varro on Beyonce.
04-Feb-13I’ve been reading Varro’s De Re Rustica in the midst of my daily labors (mostly cutting and carrying wood), and seeing new mother Beyonce looking rather fit at the Superbowl last night minded me of this passage: “Ut te audii dicere,” inquit, “cum in Liburniam venisses, te vidisse matres familias eorum affere ligna et simul pueros, [...]