by heart. As of Virgil's Aeneid, so also of the Odyssey and Iliad, the whole cannot be studied. But care should be taken that the selections are such as to give the pupils a clear view of the whole work.[1] The translation of Homer must be simple and natural. Anglo-Saxon words ought to prevail.[2] It has been previously stated, and it is self-evident, that the teaching of antiquities, descriptions of the life and manners of the heroic age, should accompany the reading of Homer.[3]
It is not necessary to dwell on the Greek Tragedies, and their importance for the higher classes of the literary curriculum. The Ratio does not mention them in particular: but Sophocles and Euripides are recommended by Jouvancy, and they were read in the colleges, as appears from the catalogues given on previous pages.[4] – The amount of the world's best literature, with which the student in the Jesuit Colleges was made acquainted, is certainly not insignificant.
- ↑ Professor Bristol, in his excellent work The Teaching of Greek in the Secondary School, suggests that books IX-XII of the Odyssey should be read first, then V, VI, VII, VIII, and part of book XIII. I must confess that such an inversion seems not advisable. Why not follow the author? I doubt also whether of book I. not more than the first 79 verses should be read. The whole first book is interesting and important for the correct appreciation of the whole.
- ↑ A good help for class translation is found in the prose translation of the Odyssey by Butcher and Lang; of the Iliad by Lang, Myers and Leaf.
- ↑ Works by Jebb, Gladstone, Mahaffy, Grote, Nägelsbach, etc. – A splendid literary appreciation of the Iliad and Odyssey, see Baumgartner, vol. III, pp. 19-63.
- ↑ See pp. 373-374; see also Baumgartner, vol. III, pp. 133-244.
