|
WHO
must
STUDENTS READ?
At the top of this page, Cicero
demanded that we classically-trained students read the poets,
the historians and the writers and teachers of the liberal arts
and sciences. Surely, he doesn't mean just any poets,
historians, etc.. Who then are the masters which students
must read? Let's look at each genre separately:
I. ORATORY
"The name of Cicero has
come to be regarded not as the name of a man, but as the name of
eloquence itself. Let us, therefore, fix our eyes on him, take
him as our pattern, and let the student realize that he has made
real progress if he be a passionate admirer of Cicero." -Quintillian
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) is
traditionally held to have been the greatest communicator in
the history of the world, and was an excellent moral philosopher. Cicero lived during the greatest years of Roman civilization
and was a star in the political, judicial and cultural spheres.
Cicero has left for us a great collection of speeches, letters
and essays that allow us to learn the art of oratory from the best.
To understand the power of Cicero's
writings, consider this ancient testimony:
"In the ordinary course of
study, I lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose
language almost all admire. This book of his contains an
exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius.
This book, in truth, changed my affections, and turned my
prayers to You, O Lord, and made me have other hopes
and desires. Worthless suddenly became every vain hope to
me; and, with an incredible warmth of heart, I yearned for
an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise that I
might return to You."
The author of this praise? St.
Augustine. The famous doctor of the Church credited the
writing of Cicero with the turning of his heart toward God prior
to his famous conversion. How many testimonies like this
have you heard of other study programs?
II.
HISTORY
By "History" we do not mean
the study of historical information, but the art of narration
which is crucial to Rhetoric. Few understand how much is
gained or lost in speech by the way in which events are related
without theoretical training in the principles and virtues of
narration. To study this art we learn the applicable
principles of Rhetoric and study the writings of Julius Caesar
and Titius Livius.
Julius Caesar, famous
for his political life, is less known today for his military
life and even less for his work as a writer and speaker.
The commentaries written by Caesar on the Gallic Wars have been
studied in classical academies since the days of Caesar and are
the model for prose writing. One old teacher wrote:
"Caesar's genius
was many-sided, and he might have been no less eminent as an
orator and an author than as a statesman and a general, if
he had chosen these fields of activity for their own sake.
Caesar was recognized by his contemporaries as an orator
second only to Cicero, and the simplicity, clearness and
terseness of his Commentaries have made them a classic from
his day to our own."
Titus Livius, known as
"Livy", lived from 59 BC to 17 AD and wrote the famous history of
the Roman Empire, titled Ab Urbe Condita ("From the
Founding of the City"). Livy provides us not only with
exemplary historical technique, but also a moral look into the
Roman mind around the time of Our Lord's birth and early life.
III.
POETRY
"The reading of
poets is of great service to the orator, for the poets will give
us inspiration as regards the matter, sublimity of language, the
power to excite every kind of emotion, and the appropriate
treatment of character." -Quintilian
We find the
masters of poetry among the Romans and in the Homer (for advanced
Greek students). In the later stages of Grammar, students
learn the rules of Prosody and then study the finest examples in
Vergil, Horace and Ovid.
Publius Vergilius Maro ("Vergil")
was the poet laureate of the Augustan age and is believed by
many to be the greatest poet ever to live. It is for this
reason Dante chose him to serve as his guide through the
underworld in the Divine Comedy. Students in
Humanities read selections from his epic The Aeneid.
Vergil models for us the use of heroic meter which is the same
used by Homer. Quintus Horatius
Flaccus, known to us simply as Horace, was a Roman philosopher
and consider another of history's master poets. Horace
models for us the use of lyric poetry and, when studied rightly
is a wonderful source of moral instruction, as the title of this English
textbook shows, "The Odes of Horace,
the Best of Lyrick Poets: Containing Much Morality and
Sweetness". Not all of his works are so "sweet",
but our concern is his technique, not all of his content, and we
read only his best and cleanest selections.
Publius Ovidius Naso ("Ovid") is the famous author of the
Metamorphoses, from which almost all of our knowledge of
classical mythology is derived. Without Ovid, there would
be no British Literature as his works provided the source
material for most of the most famous works of Chaucer, Milton,
Shakespeare and more.
|
