By Phyllis B. Katz, Charbra Adams Jestin

Description

Latin text based on Loeb text by Goold contains: Met. I.452-567; IV 55-166; VIII.183-235; VIII.616-724; X.238-297; Amores I.1, I.3, I.9, I.11, I.12, III.15.

Special Features

• Introduction for each passage
  
• Vocabulary and notes on same page as text
  
• Complete vocabulary in back
  
• Separate section of translation questions and answers on facing pages
  
• Glossaries of metrical terms and figures of speech
  
• High frequency vocabulary list
• Translation tips for reading Ovid

Student study aid for Ovid Amores, Metamorphoses Selections, 2nd ed. An Ovid Workbook, This workbook contain the Latin text that is on the AP* syllabus accompanied by exercises (grammar, translation, short answer analysis, scansion if appropriate, figures of speech, and essay questions) that will help students to read and understand the literature as well as prepare for the AP* examination.

Author Bios

Charbra Adams Jestin teaches Latin, Spanish, and French at Avon High School in Avon, Connecticut. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Classics from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Phyllis B. Katz is a Senior Lecturer in Classics and a member of the Women’s Studies Faculty at Dartmouth College, where she has also taught in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program. She has published numerous articles on classical and comparative literature.

Comments and Reviews

No one has been more active in this field than Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, recently awarded a well-deserved ovatio at the CAMWS meeting in Cleveland. In 1998, for example, Lou and Marie published Charbra Adams Jesnin and Phyllis B. Katz, Ovid: Amores, Metamorphoses-Selections. The student edition ($15) features vocabulary and notes on the same page as the text, a complete vocabulary at the back, translation questions with answers, high-frequency vocabulary list, and a glossary of metrical terms and figures of speech. In addition to the expected material, the teacher's edition ($20) also adds sample tests in the AP format. Likewise, Ronnie Ancona's Horace: Selected Odes and Satire 1.9 ($19) contains the entire 1999 Horace AP curriculum in clear and well annotated texts and it too contains much ancillary material designed to help students succeed in the exam. A teacher's guide ($20) is forthcoming. Margaret Brucia and Madeleine Henry have also collaborated to produce Horace Satire 1.9 (1998, $ 7), a stand-alone text with many of the aids mentioned above for other texts (teacher's guide, $3). Likewise, since the AP now calls for some selections from Books 10 and 12 of the Aeneid, Barbara Weiden Boyd has produced Vergil's Aeneid 10 & 12: Pallas and Turnus (1998; student edition, $7; teacher's guide, $3; also available from the ACL's TMRC-student edition, item 86, teacher's guide, item 86T) designed to supplement Clyde Pharr's text, which, while excellent, only covers the first six books of the Aeneid (remember that Bolchazy-Carducci now publishes Pharr as well). When the AP committee reduced the number of lines to be read from Book 4 and added the stories of Turnus and Pallas, the need was immediate.

At the same time, new texts are coming out that address alternatives to more traditional ancient authors and texts. For example, Bolchazy-Carducci have now published a companion volume to their 1998 Cicero: Pro Archia Poeta Oratio by Steven Cerutti ($20); This volume compliments the earlier text of the Pro Archia, also edited by Steven ($15) and adds a nice touch to assist students: most of the periodic sentences (which tend to scare them even more than the periodic table) are diagrammed out.

— The Classical Outlook

I think this edition of the Ovid selections on the current AP syllabus will be well received. Bolchazy-Carducci continues its series of Advanced Placement course materials, pairing a student text with a teacher's edition which includes the text selections in large font, suitable for reproducing on transparencies for the overhead projector. The student books follow the format of placing Latin text on the right hand pages and vocabulary, and grammatical and critical notes on the left, with occasional extensions of notes to the lower half of the right pages. My students found the vocabulary helpful and non-intrusive. Some students liked that the editors point out and label rhetorical figures, e.g. litotes, hendiadys, etc. Interpretive comments supplement the notes in the early selections, but later on it is up to the teacher to encourage students to determine the force or effect of each figure of speech in class discussion or assignments, an editorial decision I appreciated. Many of the grammatical aids are aimed perfectly for the young intermediate student, asking ?What case?' after a vocabulary gloss, or ?indicative or subjunctive?' One student commented that these questions routinely caught her from making snap judgments and encouraged her to work more carefully, knowing that she could figure out the grammar correctly, once reminded.

One element of the editions which I found useful was the self-questioning, self-checking exercises placed as an appendix to the Ovid texts in the student book. My more motivated students used these in preparing for tests. In addition, I found them useful for beginning class as a warm-up exercise. I reproduced the page of questions and put it up on the overhead, uncovering the answers as students went along. My students also liked the inclusion of a high frequency vocabulary list in addition to the full glossary in the appendices.

I used their materials for several poems of the Amores, as my AP students finished their review for the AP exam this spring. On occasion I gave the class photocopies of the large font pages of the Teacher's Edition, asking them to mark, code and comment on figures of speech and word arrangements. The students found the spacing and format better suited to their class work than other ways I had presented this exercise in the past, and we had excellent discussions in their presentations to each other of their work. The teacher's edition includes suggestions for teaching scansion, a topical bibliography, translations of the passages, and AP format tests, which cover each poem or selection. The tests are a boon for the teacher, saving some preparation time and providing practice of the general format along with manageable amounts of material to review and to cover in a class period. I gave two as tests and used one to structure a class review of Amores 3.15. I found the variety of the questions fair and representative.

In conclusion, this reviewer found these books attractive, helpful and useful. The editors are to be commended for using a judicious mixture of advice and restraint, striking a balance, which encouraged my students to use their skills and develop a literary confidence of their own.

— Nina Barclay
Norwich Free Academy

This book is aimed at Advanced Placement and college level students who are ready to read Ovidian poetry. The selections include Amores 1.3, 1.9, 1.11, 1.12 and 111.15 as well as selections from the Metamorphoses (Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Philemon and Baucis, Daedalus and Icarus, and Pygmalion.)

Like the Pharr Virgil text, Ovid: Amores, Metamorphoses includes only a few lines of the poem on each page so that extensive vocabulary and notes may be provided to the student. Although some feel that the vocabulary and notes may be a crutch to the student, I personally think that this arrangement enables the student to concentrate on reading and comprehending Latin rather than thumbing through a dictionary.

The macron controversy is resolved by a compromise. The actual text does not include macrons, but the accompanying notes and glossary do.

The illustrations are simple, including some black and white line drawings and maps of places mentioned in the poems.

What distinguishes this volume most is the set of syntactical line-by-line questions in the appendix. A series of questions (with answers) focusing on syntax is provided for students as an aid to translation and comprehension of the poem. These questions are meant for independent use, rather than classroom discussion. Such questions seem to be useful at helping students look at the Latin thoughtfully, rather than as a jumble of words.

There is an accompanying teacher's guide that includes helpful hints and suggestions for teaching scansion of dactylic hexameter and elegiac couplet. The text of the poems is reproduced in a font size appropriate for overhead transparency, which is timesaving for the teacher. Full translations of all the selections are included. Finally, there are sample tests in an AP format for each test and a topical bibliography.

— Sharon Kazmierski

Whenever the AP Latin Committee changes a syllabus, pandemonium ensues. It's not that teachers resist preparing new material for their courses (indeed, the opportunity to teach something new is, more often than not, a welcomed prospect), but rather that they must begin the search for a new textbook. And that textbook must be both appropriate for the ability of their AP students and affordable. The commentary, ideally, will give students help with translation (but not too much), supply essential background information, and point out the literary merits and effectiveness of the author's style.

Charbra Adams Jestin, and Phyllis B. Katz have succeeded in meeting these criteria. Their book, which includes the latest AP Ovid selections, is clear, thorough, and user-friendly. Each of the six selections from the Amores and five excerpts from the Metamorphoses is clearly introduced. Notes and commentary are helpful, but predicated on an understanding of standard grammatical terminology. For example, At Amores 1.3, line 11 the note says, "Here begins the apodosis to balance the four conditions set forth in the protasis" and at Metamorphoses 4.111 (Pyramus and Thisbe) we are informed that "iubeo is used with the imperfect subjunctive minus the expected ut to introduce an indirect command."

The book also includes a section on Ovid's life and works and appendices on meter, figures of speech, a high-frequency word list and a vocabulary. But my favorite section is entitled Translation Questions and Answers. Here the authors have created 30 pages of short, straight-forward grammar questions that correspond, line-by-line, to the text and are designed to "train" students to translate accurately. Although answers are provided on the same page, the authors caution their reader to "think through the questions on their own before consulting the answers." Students are asked to identify the case and reason of nouns, what noun an adjective modifies, the tenses and forms of verbs, to what word a pronoun refers, etc. Students are also challenged to scan lines to ascertain vowel quantities as an aid to identifying case.

This section can help students improve their awareness of the way Latin words work and hone their translation skills. It also enables them to manipulate the nuts-and-bolts kind of questions often asked on the multiple choice section of the AP Exam.

In Ovid: Amores, Metamorphoses: Selections: Jestin and Katz have provided a thoughtful, thorough, and practical text for Latin students at the AP and intermediate college level.

— Margaret A. Brucia
CAES Newsletter

For new annotated editions of Latin authors suitable for senior school students or university ex-beginners we increasingly have to look to the USA, where the prescribed texts of the national Advanced Placement examination assure a ready market. In Britain, by contrast, nothing much has appeared since the Cambridge Texts and Handbooks of the 1970s; and the Bristol Classical Press evidently finds it worthwhile to reprint the old Gould and Whiteley editions from the Macmillan series.

Bolchazy-Carducci are now offering a new edition of the AP Ovid selection from Amores and Metamorphoses. The Amores are represented by 1.1, 1.3, 1.9, 1.11, 1.12, 3.15 and though this might not be everybody's choice, it would be difficult to quibble with the Metamorphoses selection, which comprises Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Daedalus and Icarus, Philemon and Baucis, and Pygmalion. There are 180 lines altogether from Amores and 445 from Metamorphoses.

The edition offers brief introductions to Ovid's life and works, to the Amores and Metamorphoses separately, and to the individual poems and extracts. The Latin text (taken from Kenney's OCT and Gould's Loeb respectively) is copiously annotated beneath at a rough ratio of three lines of notes to one line of text. At the end of the book there are grammatical Questions and Answers on each passage, brief appendices on Metrical Terms and Figures of Speech, a High-Frequency Word List of words which occur more than five times, and a full Glossary complete with principal parts and declensions. Other features are a series of six simple maps marking the places mentioned in particular passages and seven line drawings illustrating the various myths.

This is a serviceable edition which students will find useful. It began as an MA dissertation by Jestin, and has been read and improved by a number of teachers whose help is acknowledged.

— John Barsby
University of Otago