Customer Reviews

An Anthology of Latin Prose

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4 star:		(1)
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It has always been my impression that (Cicero, Pliny, and Livy aside,) Latin prose often receives the short end of the stick when classics departments create their course offerings. It would be no wonder if this were true, for many people are attracted to the field in the first place by the beautiful poetry of Vergil, Catullus, Ovid, etc. A mastery of Latin literature however, is not attained without solid grounding in the prosaic tradition, which presents its own unique challenges and aesthetic.

The book's introduction nicely acquaints the reader with the development of the genre and I thoroughly enjoyed the section on clausulae, which my teachers have rarely discussed, and some have outright dismissed. For the text itself, Russell has chosen some wonderful excerpts that sport both a wide range of authors across time periods with engaging content.

I withhold a 5th star from this review only because Russell chose several selections for which his notes are too sparse for an introductory anthology reader. If I were to use this book with students at any level below undergraduate advanced Latin, I would have to expand the notes on just about every passage to make them manageable. And even then most students would have to work hard at it. This is not as user-friendly as Balme's "Intellegenda," and it is hard to specify just what demographic Russell was shooting for. The included notes chiefly cover questions of historical reference and not the brain-busting grammatical convolutions and lengthy constructions that make Latin prose very troublesome for a neophyte.

Overall I would recommend this book for its quality selections and introductory sections. This is not a logical step for self-study if your only prose experience is slogging through a beginner's De Bello Gallico or a heavily annoted text with a specialized dictionary-appendix and a patient teacher. I would imagine however that any dedicated classics scholar, especially teachers, would be pleased to have this on his or her shelf.