Advanced Topics
Learners who have mastered the core undergraduate curriculum can specialize in one or more of the advanced tracks below based on their personal or research interests; there is no expectation to complete every track.
- Advanced Latin Prose and Stylistics — Investigates post-Augustan historiography, forensic and deliberative rhetoric, Imperial narrative fiction, and the stylistic mechanics of periodic composition.
- Latin Poetics, Drama, and Imperial Epic — Explores post-Virgilian imperial epic, subjective love elegy, early Roman comedy, and verse satire.
- Historical Linguistics and Italic Philology — Traces Proto-Indo-European roots, archaic inscriptional phonology, Sabellic language contact, and sociolinguistic divergence into Romance.
- Manuscript Studies, Textual Criticism, and Epigraphy — Teaches manuscript transcription and palaeographical analysis, the recension and stemmatic editing of classical texts, Roman epigraphy, and computational philology.
- Post-Classical Latin: Late Antique, Medieval, and Neo-Latin — Explores the stylistic and semantic evolution of Latin from late imperial patristic prose through medieval ecclesiastical chronicles to Renaissance humanist literature.
Advanced Latin Prose and Stylistics
Investigates post-Augustan historiography, forensic and deliberative rhetoric, Imperial narrative fiction, and the stylistic mechanics of periodic composition.
Silver Latin Historiography and Tacitean Style: Tacitus: Annals 15 (Dickinson College Commentaries / ed. Mathew Owen & Ingo Gildenhard) - An open-access guided edition with running vocabulary, historical notes, and stylistic essays focusing on Tacitean brevity, syntax ellipse, and psychological characterization.
Ciceronian Rhetorical Theory and Forensic Oratory: Cicero: On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore) (trans. & ed. James M. May & Jakob Wisse) - The foundational treatise on Roman rhetorical theory, dissecting periodic sentence structure, prose rhythm, stylistic register, and forensic argumentation.
Imperial Narrative Fiction and the Roman Novel: Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics / ed. E. J. Kenney) - An authoritative student edition introducing the baroque, highly ornate Asianist style, vocabulary coinages, and allegorical narrative of the late imperial novel.
Advanced Stylistic Syntax and Periodic Composition: A New Latin Syntax (E. C. Woodcock) - The standard historical syntax guide for advanced students, moving beyond basic grammatical rules to examine the stylistic evolution and expressive nuances of complex Latin clause architecture.
Latin Poetics, Drama, and Imperial Epic
Explores post-Virgilian imperial epic, subjective love elegy, early Roman comedy, and verse satire.
Post-Virgilian Epic and Flavian Intertextuality: The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Philip Hardie) - A critical study examining how Lucan, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus creatively reinvented Virgilian epic conventions and ideological themes under imperial autocracy.
Roman Love Elegy and Subjectivity: Propertius: Elegies Book IV (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics / ed. Gregory Hutchinson) - A philological commentary exploring the complex poetic persona, aetiology, and gender politics of late Augustan elegiac couplets.
Republican Drama and Plautine Comedy: Plautus: Pseudolus (ed. Malcolm M. Willcock) - A standard commentary introducing archaic Latin morphology, early dramatic meters (iambic senarii, trochaic septenarii), colloquial idiom, and theatrical stagecraft.
Roman Satire and Invective: Juvenal: Satires Book I (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics / ed. Susanna Morton Braund) - An authoritative edition dissecting Roman hexameter satire, indignation, rhetorical hyperbole, and social critique under the early Empire.
Historical Linguistics and Italic Philology
Traces Proto-Indo-European roots, archaic inscriptional phonology, Sabellic language contact, and sociolinguistic divergence into Romance.
Proto-Indo-European Roots and Historical Grammar: Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin (Michael Weiss) - The definitive modern handbook detailing Proto-Indo-European roots, sound laws, ablaut morphology, and the historical phonological development of the Latin language.
Archaic Latin and Linguistic Evolution: Continuing Classical Latin (The Open University) - An open-access course examining Latin's genealogical position within the Indo-European family, linguistic variation between speech and writing, early inscriptions, and Plautine archaisms.
Italic Dialects and Ancient Language Contact: The Sabellic Languages of Ancient Italy (Rex E. Wallace) - A specialized linguistic introduction to the phonology, morphology, and epigraphic records of Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene in contact with Latin.
Sociolinguistics and Vulgar Latin: Vulgar Latin (József Herman, trans. Roger Wright) - An accessible, comprehensive monograph analyzing non-literary spoken Latin, phonetic reduction, case syncretism, and the structural genesis of early Romance languages.
Manuscript Studies, Textual Criticism, and Epigraphy
Teaches manuscript transcription and palaeographical analysis, the recension and stemmatic editing of classical texts, Roman epigraphy, and computational philology.
Latin Palaeography and Manuscript Culture: Latin Palaeography (The National Archives) - An interactive archival tutorial featuring progressive transcription lessons, abbreviation decoders, and digital document facsimiles spanning scripts from 1086 to 1500.
Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique: Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Martin L. West) - The classic practical manual instructing students in manuscript collation, stemmatic recension, scribal corruption taxonomy, and conjectural emendation.
Roman Epigraphy and Inscriptional Culture: The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Alison E. Cooley) - A comprehensive guide to transcribing, dating, classifying, and contextualizing Roman lapidary and monumental inscriptions across the ancient Mediterranean.
Digital Classical Philology and Computational Methods: Digital Classics Outside the Echo-Chamber: Teaching, Knowledge Exchange & Public Engagement (ed. Gabriel Bodard & Matteo Romanello) - A gold open-access volume presenting methodologies in digital epigraphy (EpiDoc), computational text mining, corpus annotation, and electronic critical editions.
Post-Classical Latin: Late Antique, Medieval, and Neo-Latin
Explores the stylistic and semantic evolution of Latin from late imperial patristic prose through medieval ecclesiastical chronicles to Renaissance humanist literature.
Late Antique Christian Latinity: Sulpicius Severus: The Life of Saint Martin of Tours (Dickinson College Commentaries / ed. Christopher Francese) - An open-access guided edition with running vocabulary, notes, and audio illustrating the fusion of classical rhetorical polish with Christian hagiography.
Medieval Latin Language and Archival Documents: Learn Medieval Latin (The National Archives) - A structured online course utilizing authentic legal, administrative, and ecclesiastical records to teach post-classical grammar, orthography, and specialized medieval vocabulary.
Medieval Historiographical Narrative: Anonymi Gesta Francorum (Dickinson College Commentaries / ed. William Turpin) - A fully annotated digital commentary on the primary narrative of the First Crusade, providing explicit notes on non-classical syntax, colloquial register, and medieval narrative pace.
Renaissance Humanism and Neo-Latin Literature: The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin (ed. Philip Ford, Jan Bloemendal, & Charles Fantazzi) - The authoritative reference survey detailing the humanist revival of classical Latinity, vernacular interactions, scientific treatises, and early modern European literature.