The Classics Department began its annual reading marathon yesterday morning with the fall of Troy and, with any luck, it will end it this afternoon with the founding of Rome.
For 11 years now, students and faculty from the Classics Department and elsewhere have taken to the patio area outside of Godard Chapel to read an entire epic work of literature. Past readings have included Homer's "Odyssey" and "Iliad," Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and Virgil's "Aeneid" -- this year's selection.
The "Aeneid" tells the story of Aeneas and his family, Trojans who have fled the destruction of their native city at the hands of the Greeks. Beset by bad weather and even worse luck, the Trojans wander the Mediterranean in search of a new homeland before settling in Italy to found Rome.
Participants will read in ten minute intervals over the course of two days. All told, it will take the readers nine hours to finish Virgil's epic.
Readers range from Classics majors and graduate students to Latin professors and even some unexpected participants.
"It's a very interesting mix of people," event organizer and Classics professor Susan Setnik noted. "Every year there's lots of surprises. We've had people from Engineering reading because they like the Daedalus and Icarus myths. We've also had people from the library read simply because they love books."
It's even been the case that accepted pre-frosh on tours join in. One accepted student, Hannah Rose Baker, read for ten minutes simply because she thought she would enjoy the experience. "It's like you can drop in and get your daily dose of the Classics," she said.
The biggest surprise for Setnik though, is to simply see her students reading. "The students are always better at reading aloud than they think. They do a real great job."
But tackling the work of a poet born in 70 B.C.E. is no easy feat. As sophomore Marathon participant Annah Jones noted, "Obviously, this is not modern day poetry. I had to really focus and pay attention. The translation can be pretty tricky."
Even an experienced lecturer like Classics professors David Proctor was at first intimated by reading a work such as Virgil's in public. "I wasn't always comfortable with the [Marathon] reading. I could stand up in class and talk, but this was different."
Others are nonplussed about reading aloud. Classics professor Anne Mahoney read her part of Virgil's text in the original Latin. In the past students have also read from Russian and Greek translations of the epics.
The question of translation is one that has plagued Setnik before. "There's always strong feelings about what translations people like. [But with the original Latin] there is a musical nature to the language. There are things to listen to like alliteration and onomatopoeia," explained Setnik. "Translations from earlier centuries emphasize free verse and meaning."
In the end, meaning and understanding were more important to the event. After all, Setnik chose the "Aeneid" because of its parallels with our own time.
"Virgil was composing on the edge of a whole new view of the Roman world. There was lots of uncertainty about what the future's going to be," Setnik said.
This uncertainty is reflected in Virgil's story, according to Setnik. "The 'Aeneid' begins with the Fall of Troy, a very wealthy, very well-maintained society," she said. "The idea of what's next after civilization falls was on young Aeneas's mind. Sure, there's fate and the gods guiding him, but Virgil is enough of a modern artist that we're left in the end with some doubts."
