Reading Latin Poetry Aloud: A Practical Guide to Two Thousand Years of Verse (review)

For those students and teachers of classics who wish to listen to and recreate the sounds of Greek and Latin poetry, the publication of Clive Brooks’s work by the respected Cambridge University Press is an encouraging development. It joins a growing number of audio-oriented publications such as Audiobooks, as well as more traditional books on musical and literary subjects, which are accompanied by CD or MP3 audio discs. The internet also provides an increasing number of sites containing audio selections of Greek and Latin literature, e.g., the web site of the Society for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature (SORGLL): rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu. (Sed caveat auditor! Not all sites contain linguistically authentic renditions of classical Greek and Latin.)

For most students and teachers of Latin, the title of this work, Reading Latin Poetry Aloud, can be misleading. Most Latinists think of Latin literature as beginning in the second century b.c.e. and ending in the second century c.e., a time period limited to about four centuries. And generally, this delimited Classical Latin is all the Latin that is taught, with the exception of an occasional course in Medieval Latin. Brooks’s concept of Latin literature is considerably wider. Of the 312 pages of text in his book, only 100 pages are devoted to Classical Latin, while 212 pages are devoted to Medieval, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance Latin. In other words, for Latinists interested solely in Classical Latin poetry, two-thirds of this book may seem superfluous. For those Latinists, however, who are willing to explore the extensively varied regions and time periods of post-Classical Latin poetry, Brooks offers a rich selection of poems on a variety of themes, composed in many different poetic rhythms.

Brooks’s aim is not only to present and contrast representative selections of classical and post-classical Latin poetry. He also wishes to have these selections heard and recreated by purchasers of this book. For this reason, Cambridge University Press has generously included two CD’s to accompany the printed text. The sound quality of the recordings is quite good. Unfortunately, the quality of Brooks’s performance often does not match the high quality of the poetry he performs. Although his pronunciation and articulation are generally quite clear, his delivery is for the most part rather neutral and flat, rarely giving a burst of esthetic excitement or of poetic adflatus. (Listeners to the Latin recordings of Robert Sonkowsky will immediately recognize what is missing in Brooks’s recordings.)

The contents of the printed text are well organized. The following method is employed in the different sections of the work (Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance). After matters of pronunciation and prosody are explained, the Latin text of each poetic selection is given along with its metrical pattern. This is followed by a modified International Phonetic transcription of the selection, which is in turn followed by explanatory notes. And finally we are given a translation of the passage. Those who wish to put Brooks’s theories into practice will of course first have to become well acquainted with his version of the International Phonetic Alphabet, then listen carefully to his rendition with text and transcription at hand, and finally themselves try to recreate the sounds of the poetry. This will require some hard work and strong motivation, but for those who cherish the sounds of beautiful poetry, these efforts will not be in vain. Brooks’s work makes an eminently valuable contribution to the growing awareness of the importance of oral performance of classical literature.