the next three weeks

As I alluded to in my first entry, the next three weeks of my life will be spent with my nose in various books of various levels of interest...err... readability (some of it is hidious). I have a comprehensive test called the Reading List Exam in mid-June for my M.A. and if I don't pass it, I get kicked out of the program (they give you two shots at it). Here is the basic reading list:

(a) 4 "scholarly" works: History of Rome (by Michael Grant), Scribes and Scholars (by some guy), Cambridge Anthology of Latin Literature (by people who probably wear things like ascots), and Early Greek Myth (by Tim Gantz).
(b) about 40 "primary" authors and their main works: Roman authors like Vergil (wrote the Aeneid), Julius Caesar, Horace (the guy who said Carpe Diem), etc.

Thankfully, I don't have to read every page of each, but we are talking literally thousands of pages here. All for a 6(?) hour essay exam in which I will identify and explain 12 quotes and then write 3 or 4 long essays covering the scholarly works while trying to tie in the primary author stuff.

Now, I have been scared of this exam since I was an 18 year old undergrad at UGA and first heard of its mythical existence (that was 13 years ago...holy cow). Having studied for it, I am not so much terrified as nervous to my core. Also annoyed... some of this stuff (and currently the reason I am writing this post instead of reading/note-taking) is just atrocious reading. The Greek Myth book is, and I know this is blasphemous to the UGA Classics Dept. (of which the late and great Tim Gantz was a member), heinous. Here is a little tidbit:

"On a stamnos by Hermonax of only slightly later date (Munich 2413), the figure with staff reappears, looking proudly at the child, but we should keep in mind that we have no certain source for Hephaistos as the father before Hellanikos and the Berlin cup (or Euripides, if the play in which he told the story is earlier). (Gantz 236)

uhhh.. yeah. Yesterday, I read for over 5 hours and couldn't tell you a thing. Thank god I took notes.

Lest you feel like this is one big complaint, I do have to say that I am totally dorking out in the process and I love gaining all this knowledge, especially because I know how much better a teacher and how much more well informed my teaching will be because of this. I even appreciate the myth stuff because I know next to nothing about myth, which I must always explain to my students, some of whom can't fathom why a guy would teach Latin if he doesn't like mythology....

back to reading about cylex craters.