When I finished my PhD exams, and it became clear that I was going to again be working with Latin, I read a Latin novella written for students in Latin I and II. The novella was Clodia: Fabula Criminalis, by Andrew Olimpi. It was cute and silly and told a story that students would hear again and again if they continued reading Latin at an advanced level (of Clodia and Catullus). I then ordered other Latin novellas. They’re not very long, most of them are easy, and they are meant to engage readers with the language. They are meant to be read, not necessarily analyzed for grammar and syntax, or to cause you to create long lists of vocabulary, but to reinforce vocabulary that students are encountering at the given level.
Latin novellas do a few things. Most importantly, they are engaging – some are funny, some aren’t, some make accessible in Latin the myths that they might have heard of but may not be able to encounter until a more advanced level. They are stories with a clear plot that might be more appealing than some of the storylines in textbooks out there. Additionally, they provide exposure to stories that students will continue to hear about in Latin; they provide exposure to and reinforce grammar and vocabulary; they retell myths; and, they reframe the experiences of learning Latin to include women and queer people and minorities. Retellings are extremely popular, and they do the work of giving voice to those characters who have been silent/silenced in original stories. Retellings in English, like Madeline Miller’s Circe and The Song of Achilles, Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, and Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (to name a few), don’t presume any knowledge of ancient languages or even mythology. They provide new lenses for considering very old stories in the contemporary world, in particular, they provide critical approaches to reading these stories.
The novellas also provide language in Latin, of things that are happening in the contemporary world. So, while the ancients might not have had the specific language that we do for things like misogyny and queerness, authors are using the Latin language to create terminology around those things for contemporary readers. Xinran Ma, in her novella Hannah et Servilia, uses language around misogyny “odium ad feminas,” and also expresses one of the messages of her story to expel this hatred. Misogyny is a modern concept, but it is also one that is pervasive in the ancient world, so to see this concept reflected in the ancient language is meaningful for readers today. The fact that an ancient language, and one that is not spoken today, has grown and changed to include this concept makes language study relevant. Rachel Beth Cunning articulates a common experience for young queer people when she writes “Me non vidit, sed me amavit” in her Virgo Ardens. Young queer people yearn to be seen and to be loved for who they are. Eventually, in Cunning’s version of the story, Iphis does get to be seen and loved for exactly who they are.
The ancients definitely had a vocabulary around rape. The problem with rape in some ancient stories is that translators don’t want to call it that. In these novellas, writers use the Latin vocabulary of rape, and gloss it as such, rather than using the outdated and confusing language (e.g. ravish). In Medusa: Femina Potens et Fortis, Emma Vanderpool directly addresses the part of Medusa’s narrative where Poseidon rapes her in the temple of Athena. Vanderpool writes: “fugi sed crudele monstrum me vi compressit.” She also glosses the phrase “vi compressit” as “pressed with force, rape.”
While these are not the most difficult things to read for me, they make reading interesting, and they make it easier then to read more complicated Latin. This, ultimately, is the point of these novellas. The more Latin we read, the better we get at reading, and so we need to read a lot of Latin at once (not just 30 lines). Like with writing, or any kind of skill that you want to get better at, I’ve been working on building a habit, consistency and discipline, around reading Latin. My capability to recognize the need for consistency and discipline comes to me directly from language learning (the way I used to write out noun charts and verb endings the way that some people engage in prayer or maybe yoga practices). I know that I have to do a little everyday, I have to pay attention to what the book or story is teaching me, and to articulate it to others when asked. With Latin, reading has always been my weakness. Reading also makes me stronger.
Sources
Cunning, Rachel Beth. Virgo Ardens. Bombax Press, 2021.
Ma, Xinran. Hannah et Servilia.
Olimpi, Andrew. Clodia: Fabula Criminalis. Comprehensible Classics Press, 2021.
Vanderpool, Emma. Medusa: Femina Potens et Fortis.
Alexandra Sladky 