(compare Lessing's Laokoon), the V., and above all the VI. , should not be omitted. In reading the sixth book, references to Dante's Inferno should be given throughout. The translation of Virgil is no easy task; it ought to be noble and dignified.
Horace is the great lyric poet of Rome. His Epistles and Satires, carefully selected, make good reading for Freshman Class, his Odes for Sophomore. There is a great variety in his poems. All show good sense, clear judgment, extraordinary taste and elegance. His descriptions of nature are true, portrait-like, vivid and very effective. With the greatest candor he opens his heart to his friends, without disguising his weaknesses. His shorter poems are light, graceful and tender. The patriotic Odes are very different. They show the poet's aim at effecting some large social or political purpose and consequently rise to a grander and more dignified tone. Although reckoning himself among the followers of Epicurus (Epicuri de grege porcum), he rises above the coarser tenets of that school, and many of his sayings contain much practical wisdom. He is, as Lord Lytton says, the most "quotable" of authors.[1] He is not easy of translation.
The comedies of Platus and Terence, as Jouvancy says, are written in pure Latin, but contain many impure things, for which reason they should be studied in expurgated editions. This point is strongly insisted on by the Ratio Studiorum.
- ↑ See Father Baumgartner's sympathetic sketch, vol. III, pp. 437—457.
