Dulce et Decorum

The new British poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has recently published a poem to commemorate the deaths of the last survivors of the First World War trenches:
Last Post Carol Ann Duffy
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud . . .
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home —
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce — No — Decorum — No — Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too —
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert —
and light a cigarette.
There’s coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
At its heart this poem quotes Wilfred Owen in turn quoting Horace from his poem Dulce et Decorum Est. Perhaps more about this later: is Duffy being fair to Horace by wrenching him so far out of context and so far away from what he may really have meant? But for the moment a question of pronunciation. How should the Latin in this poem be pronounced? There is an audio recording of the poet herself reading her poem in which she pronounces “dulce” as if it were Italian (doolchay). Where has this pronunciation come from? Is it because of Catholic Latin where schools and churches perhaps founded by Italian orders used this sound in their services? Almost certainly Owen himself would have said in the old English pronunciation of Latin dulce (dulcie), as in the girl’s name, with a soft “c” pronounced as “s”. He would probably not have used the pronuntiatio restituta as used in Latin teaching in most European countries today dulce with a hard “c” (dulke) unless he was taught Latin by a particularly radical young teacher. Rather he would have used the current English style which had been used for many years, until recent scholarship had established that this pronunciation was inauthentic. The battle over this change in sound lasted for many years until the last of those taught the old pronunciation had died out. The British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was apparently one of the last survivors who persistently stuck to the old pronunciation until the end of his life in 1986. Owen’s Latin was apparently fairly minimal and he could not go beyond the basics when he was engaged as a private tutor to a family in France. In the end what sound should be adopted here in this new poem? An authentic or restored pronunciation would be understood by modern listeners with a basic knowledge of Latin; the traditional English pronunciation would be historically accurate, reflecting the usage of the poet who is being quoted (Owen, not Horace). But certainly not an Italian style which makes Wilfred Owen sound either like a Catholic priest trained in Rome or a waiter asking what you would like after your pasta.

Paul Delvaux and the Ancient World

Paul Delvaux was one of the Belgian surrealists best known for his Sleeping Venus pictures and his railway stations. He was for a long time resident in our part of Brussels (Watermael-Boitsfort) and you can sometimes see a background to his paintings as you go around the commune. He was particularly fond of Watermael station which turns up in several works. A small exhibition at the Musee Royale in Brussels is devoted to the influence on him from antiquity. He studied (as many young Belgians still do) Latin and Greek at school and he testifies to the impact the Iliad and the Odyssey made on him. He visited Italy and Greece in the late thirties and then in the fifties when travel to such exotic places was not easy. The open spaces of Pompeii and Herculaneum appear often as backgrounds to the moonlit settings of his female nudes, giving them dream-like quality. His female figures (often recalling the waxwork Sleeping Venus he saw exhibited in Brussels) are inspired by classical sculpture in their simple elegance but are unnervingly modern in their just not quite realistic depiction. Placing a porcelain-skinned female nude before a deserted Greek temple at night he achieves a disturbing nightmarish quality. He makes use of the figure of Venus as a signature to many paintings, but he also uses mythology in, for example, his Pygmalion which reverses the usual story. This use of the ancient world for visual inspiration from the material remains seems to anticipate one of our modern approaches to Classics: Delvaux discovered the power of the stories in school, and then he then went on trips to most rewarding sites to see for himself. In the exhibition there are sketches he did on site from Paestum, Pompeii and Herculaneum, and also from Olympia and Athens. He made sketches of the sculptures from the temple of Zeus at Olympia when they were scarcely known to a wider public. All these influences consequently find their way into his surrealist images transformed by his imagination into an entirely new vision of what are now familiar images. His view of the classical world is not the philological, text-based image often portrayed in critical comment by administrators wishing to show off their modernity by dismissing Classics: this is how the early introduction to the ancient world can work on the imagination of a creative artist who can absorb these ideas and aspects to change the way we look at ourselves.

Iphigénie en Aulide: Greek Tragedy in the French style

The Brussels opera house (La Monnaie) is presenting Gluck’s two Iphigénies in tandem. On some days you can see both of them in one go, an evening of Wagnerian length; the two operas performed without intervals and a long break between. Or you can see them separately and I opted for the first of the two. The inspiration is more Racine than Euripides with a lengthy treatment of the love between Iphigeneia and Achilles which allows for the themes of obedience, duty, guilt and love in different forms to be developed. Achilles loves Iphigeneia and is prepared to defy the orders of Agamemenon for her sacrifice, but his duty compels him to obey his commander; Clytemnestra is conflicted between her love for daughter and her duty towards her husband; Iphigeneia herself loves her father even though he gives the order to sacrifice her under threat from the gods. Gluck’s through-composed music is serious and always pushes the momentum forward. It suits the tragic atmosphere well and is a highly suitable style for Greek tragedy with its combination of recitative, short arias and choruses. It has few great moments and is ultimately unmemorable but for the expression of dramatic scenes it is highly successful, especially when shaped and made urgent by the conductor Christophe Rousset, whose musical triumphs continue at the Monnaie after Semele. A strong cast, headed by Véronique Gens in the title role, conveyed the tension and conflict within their tragic characters. After Katie Mitchell’s staging of Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis at the National Theatre in London recently this seemed restrained and cool, but the Racinean pacing of the events in this treatment develops into real tragic tension. Only the rather soppy happy ending detracts from the full horror of what we are capable of when put into impossible situations.

The main problem of this production lies in the staging and the director’s lack of appreciation for the audience in the theatre. Obviously the producer did not climb up to the balcony where I found my seat to check the sight-lines. I could only see half of the action and only part of the surtitles. Pierre Audi brought the stage over the orchestra pit, put the orchestra on the stage and placed the chorus behind them as a sort of reflection of the audience. (We are all spectators in this postmodern world; there are no hidden actions; all is there in front of us, we get the point). What he forgot is that the Monnaie is a traditional house where you can’t do this sort of thing without depriving the audience of most of what you want to show them. The seats which have poor enough lines of sight for conventional productions are designed to look at the stage not the pit. So we had a good view of the orchestra who we wanted to hear, and half a glimpse of the singers who we wanted to see. The staging would go well in a school hall or a gym or other improvised venue, but not in a traditional opera house which did after all commission the piece. It had “touring production” written all over it and will no doubt be sold all round Europe. But it shows contempt for its original audience. In addition I think the health and safety authorities should be called in to look at the tilt of the stairs which his singers had to negotiate their way down. I feared for the sopranos in their long dresses each time.

Vitruvius on architecture

Does anyone read Vitruvius today? Do architecture students have some familiarity with the basic text on architecture from the ancient world. Judging from the splendid new Penguin Classics (http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141441689,00.html?strSrchSql=vitruvius*/On_Architecture_Vitruvius) translation of the ten books de architectura, perhaps they do. But does anyone read him in Latin? Our European Baccalaureate last year decided on Latin scientific writers as the set texts for the final examination, and so we have become familiar with this text, in fact for the first time. It is a much more entertaining read than may be imagined at first, and is far more than a dry technical analysis of building techniques. (Though in its own way that would still be pretty interesting.) He spends quite a long time telling stories about the origin of architectural features, and about the famous figures of science and technology. His is the story about Archimedes in his bath, and about Ctesibius and his mirror in his father’s barber shop (the origin of hydraulic pumps). He is also fascinating on the origin of the Caryatid figure on temple buildings, and on the origin of the Corinthian capital. A young girl died from disease and her nurse collected up her things and placed them by her tomb in a basket with a tile on top. By chance she put this basket over the root of an acanthus plant which sprouted in the spring shooting its foliage up around and through the basket. A passing artist, Callimachus, observed the pleasing shape of the different elements and decided it would look well as a new type of capital on top of a column.

Sometimes you have to read him with the illustrations to hand to see exactly what he means, but the modern editions are full of diagrams and sketches to make the text clear. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian man sketch seems just such an attempt: the meaning of the text becomes apparent when you see it rather than just read it.

The classic sections are those on the different orders of architecture, the styles of painting in houses and theatres and town planning. He is also good on astrology and how to defend a city from sieges. There is much more to him than just architecture: in fact architectus is not confined to the narrow sense of the word in modern languages. As a stylist, Vitruvius is not a Cicero or an Ovid, but he doesn’t pretend to be. He is trying to write clear plain Latin for other architects and engineers as well as a general readership to explain things that may have become lost if he hadn’t written them down. He does not deserve to be patronised in the way the translator of an online version of his work looks down on his Latin style. As an intermediate author he has a lot to offer students of Latin who are beginning on their exploration of authentic texts but who may still find the subtleties and complexities of the classic works a bit daunting.

Do you CLIL?

Second half of term began with a pedagogical day. This is Eurospeak for in-service training, And I found myself in a lecture about CLIL, that is Content and Language Integrated Learning. This turns out to be teaching a subject to pupils through one of their foreign languages, History in English to native French speakers, for example. In French this educational phenomenon is referred to as EMILE (L’enseignement d’une matière intégré à une langue étrangère) with a nice reference to Rousseau. After a bit of this lively lecture (given by a guest lecturer: details here: http://www.vub.ac.be/FOST/fost_in_english/leden_pvdc_eng.htm) I began to realise I had been here before and I recalled some articles I had actually written on this subject in an earlier incarnation. It wasn’t called CLIL then but some other acronym, but basically it was the same: teaching through a second language towards a subject. I had been more interested in the sociological effects of this on the pupils: what German speakers made of being taught the history of the Second World War in English, by a British teacher in a mixed class with French, Italian and Dutch fellow-pupils, for example. I had seen this as having a Europeanizing effect on the youngsters, breaking down old prejudices and nationalisms in the search for objectivity and a touch of reconciliation. But it turns out that CLIL is not the answer to Europe’s old political problems but it is a way of increasing schoolchildren’s performance. Those who learn Mathematics using a CLIL methodology do better on their tests. (I suspect this means Belgians doing Maths in English in practice, but that’s another question.) And all this in the lecture, with added neuroscience. It was illustrated by those brightly-coloured brain scan pictures you often see in newspaper articles, which it is claimed show different areas of brain activity. I had a vision of schoolchildren being fed into an MRI machine and then being made to do Maths problems while they were lying flat inside a metal tube with electrodes fitted to their heads, but I’m sure it’s not like that really. It was all down to concept forming apparently. When the pupils are tackling these problems through a second language they form the concept more precisely, because they are having to think about what they are doing in a more objective manner than they would if they could do it more automatically through the medium of their first language. Then I began to think: isn’t this exactly what teachers in the past used to claim for Latin? The act of learning abstract language skills (nouns, verbs, accidence, syntax and so on) through the medium of the first language but applied to another separate language made the concepts more easily understood and consequently retained. So all that time spent on Latin grammar was not such a waste of time after all. But what did the old teachers of past centuries know? They were using what the lecturer called pre-scientific thinking about education; they didn’t have those nice pictures of bright blobs in the brain. Classics teachers would be regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned to claim such benefits for studying Latin today: we have to justify Classical studies on cultural and European grounds instead. CLIL on the other hand gets results. A criticism often aimed at Latin is that it is only for the better performing pupils. But what if it is the other way round: that those who do Latin perform better because of it, as a result of the CLIL effect? Will Latin then be at the forefront of modern educational thinking? With added neuroscience?

Look at the screen

I have had a projector in my classroom for the first time since the beginning of term. I hesitate to call it by its familiar name - beamer – as when I said I had a beamer my grown up children thought I had bought a BMW (beamer in London speak). So a data projector or device that throws a large image onto a screen, or a blank wall in my case. I do not have a Smartboard which is an interactive screen you tough instead of pointing a mouse. You quickly learn not to emphasise a point by tapping the board smartly; if you do you risk losing the whole page and then have to rummage around getting it back. What difference does this make to my teaching? In fact quite a lot. We have the Cambridge Latin Course DVDs for Books 1 and 2 on the school network (yearly licence fee paid up, of course) so I am able to use the readings, dramatisations, and civilisation videos regularly. Much better to show a short 3 or 4 minute film, than to devote a whole lesson to catching up on the ones available once a week, as I was doing before. Perhaps the most irritating part of it all though is how quickly the pupils get used to this and accept it as normal, although I still think it is an amazing piece of new technology. In other classes it is also extremely useful. With an internet connection you can very quickly and easily find an image to illustrate a piece. I was going over an unseen translation from Cicero, one of the Catilines where he tells how all the senators deserted the benches when Catiline entered the senate-house. I had not thought of it before the lesson, but I remembered the painting of just this scene and within seconds was able to find it by Googling Cicero and Catiline and switching to images.

Mythological references and illustrations are now all within easy reach, and each teacher can quickly build up their own data base. Also available are resource banks, like the Oxbox for upper school Latin from Oxford University Press. This full of exercises, unseen translations, texts for practice, presentations and other activities including the latest thing: translation into Latin. (More about this later.) So no more chalk, no more squeaky markers on the white board and now nothing but PowerPoint. Perhaps, however, we should stop going on about this new technology and like the kids in the class just take it for granted and get on with the job of teaching using what kit is available to us. The lesson is still the same, the class have to pay attention to the material in the same way and they still have to work at it. New technology doesn’t make it easier, but it does broaden the range of possible material for any particular class. So it may be the case that we are not “dumbing down” but making more demands of our students after all. So everyone, pay attention to the screen.

Not taking a school trip

For the last eight years or so I have taken a school trip (or voyage scolaire) to the Bay of Naples and Pompeii. This has been for Latinists aged 14 or so (our 4th year) in their second year of Latin. They are familiar with Pompeii through the Cambridge Latin Course Book 1 and are pleased to see some of the locations in which the stories about Caecilius and Quintus take place. A trip to this area can also take in Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum, the Archaeological Museum in Naples, the Campi Flegrei, the Villa Oplontis and Paestum. Over the years the visits have evolved, both improving and declining. Visits to Herculaneum have improved a lot with a new car park for the bus, and no longer a need to walk a perilous distance to the site entrance. New excavations are also tantalisingly close: the Villa dei Papiri almost within sight of the traditional excavations. Pompeii is often as frustrating as ever with the House of the Vettii still closed after many years of restoration. Every year for the last four I have asked at the entrance “Is the House of the Vetti open?” Always the reply is “sempre chiusa.” Last year I was told the restaurant was also closed because of a dispute over the franchise. I didn’t dare ask any further about that. Who has the concession over coffee in Pompeii? Vesuvius is always a good excursion, although the weather can make this a bit uncertain as it will be closed if it is cloudy. Even the usually dependable Solfatara had changed last year. This live volcano near Pozzuoli is a winner with school pupils especially if they were taken around by Bruno. He must have been in his seventies, a retired teacher by my estimation who spoke good French and always amused and informed my pupils, showing them the volcanic phenomena of the region with a twinkle of enthusiasm. But last year I was told he was no longer available and school visits had to make special arrangements.

So this year I have said no. The demands of taking 30 14 year olds away have finally proved too much. I very much enjoy teaching lessons on the spot: talking about gladiators in the amphitheatre itself; giving a lecture on Vitruvius’ analysis of the Doric order in front of one the temples at Paestum; speculating on who lived in the Villa Oplontis in one of the bedrooms; showing the extent of the eruption by the wall of volcanic material rising up in front of the site at Herculaneum. But when we get back to the hotel at 18.30 or so the day has not finished and will continue through dinner (Are they all eating enough? Are they behaving at table?) and the evening (How to occupy them until bedtime?) and the night (Who is making that noise at 03.00? Are they all in their rooms?). The responsibilities of keeping them all safe, well, fed, healthy, getting enough sleep) are just too much, when parents are now so demanding over the safety aspects, the cost and their need to be constantly informed about the welfare of their offspring. (Can we have your mobile number? You will make sure it is switched on at all times?) I have begun to wonder if it is safe to let them go off for half an hour in Naples. Probably not, but they do have to learn to cope with different places. So for my pupils I shall have to leave to someone else the responsibility of giving them the experience of seeing the Bay of Naples with its ancient past and controversial present.