"I am good but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love." -M. Monroe

she dreams in poetry but writes in prose // she lives in ballet flats but likes to feel the grass between her toes // she craves her Starbucks fix // she's pearls and she's politics // she makes her own sunshine on a rainy day // she gets her work done but she lives to play.


Monday, November 1, 2010

classic.

Julius Caesar walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a martinus
Bartenders says "you mean a martini?"
Caesar says "Nah, buddy. If I want more than one, I'll let you?"

If you laughed at that, you're a classics nerd too :) I'm sure that you've picked up on my interest in classics from this blog title and the signature on my posts.

As a struggled to stay awake Sunday translating Xenophon's Anabasis and Plato's Symposium for my test tomorrow, I was thinking about why I, or anyone, would take this challenging language or study the classics in general.

Just the word "classic" when applied to clothes refer to those pieces that are always in style - you will look go no matter what in these. "Classic" novels are those works that were written long ago but are still read because they continue to have resonance now. In other words, something that is classic is old but always feels "now".

I could go on and on about the specifics of Ancient Greek, but all I will say is that the complicated constructions and the nuances in the language that we do not have in English make Ancient Greek so elegant and precise. Classics and classical languages open up this whole new world of thought and way of thinking. The language of a culture gives us insight on what was important to them and through which lenses they viewed the world. The words and ideas of the Ancient Greeks are timeless and these classical civilizations made us who we are today.


"This new degree of Bachelor of Science does not guarantee that the holder knows any science. It does guarantee that he does not know any Latin" - Dean Briggs, Harvard College (1900)

Lately, math and science are the focus in education because they seem more directly practical. Will the classics help a surgeon save a life or a aid a scientist in measuring natural phenomena? No, but the lessons learned from classics and humanities infuse those actions with meaning and frame them in the context of what it means to be human. I would argue that that is more central to a successful society.


P.S. Know what is also great about Ancient Greece? Democracy started there - so get out and vote today!

ab imo pectore,

Hannah

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