BMCR 2009.08.16: Response: Ancona and Murphy on Aveline on Ancona and Murphy, Horace: A Legamus Transitional Reader

Ancona and Murphy on Aveline on Ancona and Murphy, Horace: A Legamus
Transitional Reader.   Response to BMCR 2009.07.45

Response by Ronnie Ancona and David J. Murphy, Hunter College and The
Graduate Center, CUNY and The Nightingale-Bamford School, retired
([email protected], [email protected])
-------------------------------
To read a print-formatted version of this response, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-08-16.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/08/20090816.html
-------------------------------

As authors of Horace: A Legamus Transitional Reader, we would like to
offer a very brief response to the review of our book by John Aveline
in order to make a few corrections. While we are delighted that the
reviewer thinks "[t]here is a great deal which recommends this book,"
the continuation of his sentence, "to its target market of high school
Latin students and teachers," is misleading. We do indeed hope the high
school market will make use of the book, but it is equally targeted at
the transitional reader at the college level. To ensure its usefulness
for both levels, we piloted the text at five institutions, two colleges
and three high schools (see p. xvii for the names of the institutions
and pilot teachers). The reviewer states that words like "sum"
"scarcely warrant inclusion" in the pull-out vocabulary, but the
introduction to that vocabulary clearly explains why such a word is
there: the words were chosen for their high frequency in Horace's Odes
and Satires and their high frequency in Latin, more generally (cf. p.
xiv under "Vocabulary" as well). The reviewer states (note 2) that all
of the Reader's Latin selections can be found in our A Horace Workbook.
In fact the material from the satires does not overlap. The Workbook
covers Satires 1.9, while the Reader under review includes selections
from Satires 1.4 and 1.6. Finally, our practice of referring the
student at times to other examples within the book of Horace's use of a
particular figure of speech rather than to the appendix of figures
should not be seen as an inconsistency but rather as an attempt to
develop the student's sense of repeated use of particular figures in
Horace.