in principio
In the beginning
During the 'Jurassic Era', a school’s curriculum was set. No course deviation was permitted. Consequently, in 1959; during my final year in middle school, I sat Latin for the first and last time. Returning for the autumn term, now in senior school; Latin had been removed from the curriculum
During the previous scholastic year, I had been obliged to memorize 72-consecutive lines from Shakespeare’s, Macbeth. My imagination concocted a convoluted chemistry; I equated the play’s three witches and their brew with the removal of Latin. After all, I was a schoolboy when all problems were subject to reductio ad absurdum, the reduction of an argument to absurdity or contradiction
quis te linguam Latinam docuit
Who taught you Latin?
This past decade; I recommenced my Latin studies. First, two years alone, and then under the tutorship of Professor Denis Brault, La Fondation Humanitas pour les humanities Gréco-Latines au Quebec. This first-step was followed studying under Professor Melanie Houle, the autumn 2018 semester, followed immediately by three semesters with Professor Louise Stephens, University of Ottawa. Courses were on an audit basis, with my two-year sojourn terminating as the corona virus swept the world in March 2020
Alone, isolated in accordance within the strictures of the pandemic gulag, I re-wrote my Latin notes during the pestilentia magna anno duo milia viginti, the Great Plague in the year two thousand twenty
in posterum, In the future I will continue to pursue Latin studies. It is my hope to seek out and meet with others who possess a yearning to further understand one of the foundational languages and cultures of Western society
in principio
In the beginning
During the 'Jurassic Era', a school’s curriculum was set. No course deviation was permitted. Consequently, in 1959; during my final year in middle school, I sat Latin for the first and last time. Returning for the autumn term, now in senior school; Latin had been removed from the curriculum
During the previous scholastic year, I had been obliged to memorize 72-consecutive lines from Shakespeare’s, Macbeth. My imagination concocted a convoluted chemistry; I equated the play’s three witches and their brew with the removal of Latin. After all, I was a schoolboy when all problems were subject to reductio ad absurdum, the reduction of an argument to absurdity or contradiction
quis te linguam Latinam docuit
Who taught you Latin?
This past decade; I recommenced my Latin studies. First, two years alone, and then under the tutorship of Professor Denis Brault, La Fondation Humanitas pour les humanities Gréco-Latines au Quebec. This first-step was followed studying under Professor Melanie Houle, the autumn 2018 semester, followed immediately by three semesters with Professor Louise Stephens, University of Ottawa. Courses were on an audit basis, with my two-year sojourn terminating as the corona virus swept the world in March 2020
Alone, isolated in accordance within the strictures of the pandemic gulag, I re-wrote my Latin notes during the pestilentia magna anno duo milia viginti, the Great Plague in the year two thousand twenty
in posterum, In the future I will continue to pursue Latin studies. It is my hope to seek out and meet with others who possess a yearning to further understand one of the foundational languages and cultures of Western society