The Art of Latin Poetry, Founded on the Work of M. C. D. Jani

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1828 edition. Excerpt: ...Host is calMdus, ingeniously avoiding the repetition of mustela. 2. Hence we see, that even in the simplest and plainest poetical writing, where the author aims at no elevation of style or splendor of decoration, how much there is which strongly distinguishes it from mere prose. It is by scrutinizing and dissecting passages in this manner that the student will acquire a stock of poetical language that will render versification comparatively easy; he will learn how to combine and dispose words so as to produce the effect he cannot but observe in his models; and it is principally to this point that the teacher-should direct his instructions. The mechanical construction of an elegiac couplet (usually the first thing attempted) requires little beyond an effort of memory; and slight practice in scanning and proving, as it is called (that is, in the application of the rules of prosody), soon renders it easy and familiar. But to investigate the nature of Latin poetry, as distinguished from prose, requires the exercise of observation, taste, and judgment, on the part of the scholar, and much attention and discernment on the part of the instructor. But time and labour would be saved by it in the end. Too much of both is usually taken up in the arrangement of nonsense verses, or the composition of others but one degree removed from them. Boys are set to work before they have materials. Their scanty stock of poetic language is, for the most part, due to the Gradus ad Parnassum, whose hackneyed epithets and phrases are repeated usque ad fastidium, by every tiro that has mastered his prosody. Instead of being driven to lean on this rotten staff, they should be early accustomed to depend upon their own application of classical writers to the...