Archive for the 'Medieval Latin Texts' Category

20% Off 4 Best Sellers!

Published on June 8, 2010 in Announcement, Latin Texts, Medieval Latin Texts and Sale. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Summer Sale on 4
of Our Best Selling Titles

CANE Press is pleased to announce a Special Summer Sale running from June 8, 2010 through July 31, 2010 on four of our best-selling books.

More About These Titles…

Disciplina Clericalis, Petrus Alphonsus This collection, never before edited with notes, is a source for Medieval fables and tales, taken from many different sources; examples are given in the back of the book with notes. This is the perfect sourcebook for readings for classes at the intermediate level.

Fables by Phaedrus Fables are always fun for students. Here not only are the Phaedrus fables, with excellent notes, but also the fables of Aesop and Babrius (in English), the Medieval versions (in Latin with notes) and LaFontaine. A wonderful book for mixed classes: the lower level students can read the Phaedrus and English, and the upper level students can read the Phaedrus and the Medieval Latin. Fun for everyone!

Plautus for Reading and Production A revision of the original book, this abbreviated (but totally authentic) text of 3 major comedies and scenes from 4 others is a crowd pleaser. The information on performance gives students many chances to expand on the stories and perform them. An excellent book for the intermediate level.

The Story of the Prophet Daniel Here are 2 text versions with notes of the Medieval Play of Daniel: Beauvais, which is available on CDs, and Hilarius. There is a wealth of ancillary material, too: scholarly articles on various elements in the plays, a discussion of characters and drama in the Middle Ages, and parts of the Apocrypha in English. A fascinating book and great for multi-media presentations.

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How to Use Peter Alphonsus

Published on December 17, 2009 in Latin, Latin Pedagogy, Latin Texts and Medieval Latin Texts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

First, read the Introduction and see how the folk tale and wisdom literature elements are presented. If your students are interested in this, there is a wealth of material for them to use in writing/researching a paper on many of the stories.

Second, in a multi-level class, you can have all the students read the actual Alphonsus story, then have the more advanced students read either the Gesta versions or the other Latin sources that are presented with each story. The less advanced students can read about the wisdom/folk tale origins in English and add their commentary.

You can also have students write their own moral to the story, whether it’s the Alphonsus or the Gesta version.

Peter Alphonsus

Published on December 17, 2009 in Latin, Latin Texts and Medieval Latin Texts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Story-telling might actually be the “oldest profession.” While the stories all have a supposed moral, quite frankly they offer great entertainment value. Most of them are short and give you a good feeling for the culture of the Middle Ages.

Many of Alphonsus’ stories were later used in the Gesta Romanorum, and he also gathered stories from all over: India, the Near East (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) and Europe.  They are a combination of folktales and wisdom literature, all of which is carefully explained in the notes to both the text and the book itself.

Like much of Medieval Latin, the prose is straight-forward and the word order easy to understand. Once you have gotten accustomed to the spelling (e.g., c instead of t, cepit instead of coepit), which is explained in the notes, and think of the English derivatives, the translating is easy, and the text can even be read without conscious translation. The discussion questions can lead to further conversation and study.

How to Use the Navigatio Sancti Brendani

Published on December 17, 2009 in Latin, Latin Pedagogy, Latin Texts and Medieval Latin Texts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

How to use the Navigatio Sancti Brendani for utmost pleasure for both you and your students:

First, as the teacher, download the Teacher’s Notes from the store on the CANEPress website. There are many items of interest here: projects, an outline of the story itself and the translation of the text.

Flying GriffinSecond, explain to the students that they now have a chance to understand the medieval mind. Things that we see know are not possible (e.g., a column rising in the middle of the ocean) were perfectly reasonable to the time period. If students look at some of the old maps, they will see lots of fantastic items listed. It’s not that these people were “stupid,” it’s that their understanding of the world allowed the mystic and the real to coexist on the same plane.

If you use old maps, you will find that you can try to plot St. Brendan’s course, but will often get lost, and want to go in another direction! In that case, view the voyage as a metaphor for: salvation/finding oneself/a quest. That opens the discussion up in very interesting ways.

Navigatio Sancti Brendani

Published on December 17, 2009 in Latin, Latin Texts and Medieval Latin Texts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
Navigatio Sancti Brendani CoverStudents love this book, which can be read on many levels.  First, it is a science-fiction story: the protagonists travel to strange new worlds, and do indeed seek out new lives and new civilizations; they boldly go where only one person had gone before (to paraphrase Star Trek).  Certainly a demon leaping out of a person’s mouth, spending a year on an island and thinking that only a day has gone by, and finding people who are over 120 years old is not in the realm of reality, not to mention finding a “grail”.

Second, like much of Medieval Latin, the prose is straight-forward and the word order easy to understand.   Once you have gotten accustomed to the spelling (e.g., c instead of t, cepit instead of coepit), which is explained in the notes, and think of the English derivatives, the translating is easy, and the text can even be read without conscious translation.

Map of St. Brendan's IslandThird, it gives us a different view on the Medieval and early modern world.  That cartographers thought there really was a St. Brendan’s island (see illustration and note on p. iv) is surprising to us, with our rational minds.  However, we see the world differently than they did, and it is always important to remember the time and context of a work.