Victoria Emma Pagán
Associate Professor
115C Dauer Hall
352-392-2075 x 262
vepagan@ufl.edu
Mailing Address:
125 Dauer Hall
Department of Classics
University of Florida
Post Office Box 117435
Gainesville, FL 32611-7435
FAX: 352-846-0297
Office hours Spring 2008
Thursdays: 2:00-4:00
LNW 3490: MEDIEVAL LATIN, Augustine's Confessions
Schedule of Assignments
Often regarded as the first autobiography of western
literature, the Confessions
of Saint Augustine is rich and provocative text. In narrating his
life, from his infancy and childhood through puberty and his adult
years, Augustine gives an extraordinary picture of what it was like to
grow up in provincial Roman North Africa, to be educated in Carthage,
to be a schoolteacher at Rome, and a professor of rhetoric at
Milan. The result is a unique document for social history, filled
with details about daily life in late antiquity and offering rare
glimpses of ordinary experiences. Augustine lived on the edge, in
a world between worlds, between Christian and pagan religions, between
Punic and Latin languages, between classical and medieval Latin,
between the influences of the distant city of Rome and the local,
provincial home town, between the political stability of the longest
lasting empire of the ancient Mediterranean and its imminent sack by
Alaric and the Goths. Somehow, Augustine did not fall through
these cracks; instead, he seems to have thrived in the interstices, to
become one of the most central figures of the western canon.
Textbooks
1. Clark, Gillian, ed. Augustine: Confessions Books I-IV (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics-Imperial Library).
2. Campbell, J., ed.
The Confessions of St. Augustine: Selections from Books I-IX.
3. Confessions (Penguin
Classics) by Saint Augustine of Hippo. translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin.
4. Brown, Peter. Augustine
of Hippo: A Biography, Revised edition with new epilogue.
2000.
5. O'Donnell, James. Augustine:
A New Biography. 2005.
6. WEBSITE:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html
Includes links to complete text
and commentary for the Confessions.
Course Requirements
Students will prepare translations of the Latin for recitation
and discussion in class.
Grades
25%=Participation
25%=Weekly translation quizzes
25%=1 midterm translation exam
25%=final paper on Brown and O'Donnell
Policies
1. Your perfect attendance at lecture and section
meetings is expected.
2. There will be no make up work (quiz/test/final paper) except
in
extraordinary and documented cases.
3. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first
register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office
will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this
documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation.
4. The use of cellular devices during lecture and section is
strictly prohibited. Refusal to comply results in immediate
dismissal from class.
5. Academic Honesty is expected at all times. We, the members of
the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our
peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity . On all work
submitted for credit by students at the university, the following
pledge is either required or implied: "On my honor, I have neither
given nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment."
6. Students who face difficulties completing the course or who
are in need of counseling or urgent help may call the on-campus
counseling center: 352-392-1575, or the student mental health center:
352-392-1171.
