00:00 - 00:03 | The working group for Mods reform |
00:04 - 00:05 | has come up with a proposal. |
00:05 - 00:07 | We will be extending the provision |
00:08 - 00:12 | of language teaching before and after mods, |
00:12 - 00:15 | so that Lit Hum students will leave with advanced Latin or Greek. |
00:17 - 00:19 | That sounds like yet more work |
00:19 - 00:21 | for an already stretched undergraduate body. |
00:24 - 00:26 | Mein Fuhrer, |
00:27 - 00:28 | we're... |
00:31 - 00:33 | We're thinking of removing Homer and Virgil |
00:34 - 00:36 | and replacing them with Xenophon. |
00:53 - 00:58 | Everyone leave the room except for the Sub-Faculty heads, Jonathan Prag, and Andrew Dixon. |
01:13 - 01:15 | What the fuck are they thinking? |
01:15 - 01:17 | I mean, seriously, what the fuck? |
01:18 - 01:23 | The works of Homer and Virgil have formed the basis for classical education since antiquity! |
01:25 - 01:28 | Their knowledge is indispensable for the understanding of the Graeco-Roman world. |
01:29 - 01:31 | Who the hell came up with these proposals? |
01:31 - 01:34 | There is no reason to believe the language learning abilities of undergraduates have changed in any way. |
01:34 - 01:37 | Course IB only have to do four fucking books! |
01:37 - 01:40 | Back in my day we read the whole damn thing! |
01:40 - 01:42 | We're worried that students coming from state schools won't be able to cope. |
01:42 - 01:46 | That belief is not only unfounded, but also patronising. |
01:46 - 01:48 | What we're suggesting is the only way forward. |
01:48 - 01:52 | But they're getting rid of the best part of the fucking course! |
01:53 - 01:54 | I love Homer! |
01:56 - 01:57 | I poured over that text for ages - |
01:57 - 02:00 | year after year I learned all those hapaxes. |
02:00 - 02:03 | I've spent more time with Autenrieth than with my wife! |
02:04 - 02:08 | It's literally the cornerstone of all classical literature! |
02:08 - 02:13 | How are they going to understand anything they read if all they know is fucking Xenophon? |
02:14 - 02:16 | It's a total race to the bottom. |
02:17 - 02:21 | We'll have a generation of people who can't read Greek or Latin - it'll be like Cambridge! |
02:27 - 02:29 | I cry when I read the Iliad |
02:30 - 02:34 | it's the book I keep coming back to - |
02:34 - 02:36 | I even wrote a commentary on book 10. |
02:41 - 02:42 | As for the Aeneid, |
02:43 - 02:47 | it's only the most influential bit of Latin literature ever written. |
02:48 - 02:53 | Now they won't be able to read Dante's Inferno or bloody Milton, |
02:54 - 02:56 | and that's in goddamn English. |
02:56 - 02:59 | arma virumque is all they'll know |
03:00 - 03:02 | and they won't even know how to scan arma virumque. |
03:04 - 03:07 | Don't worry, you'll still get those four scansion marks. |
03:14 - 03:16 | The bastion of classical learning has fallen. |
03:19 - 03:23 | This is like the library of Alexandria burning all over again. |
03:25 - 03:26 | It's over. |
03:31 - 03:33 | We won't beat the reformers |
03:40 - 03:46 | but I suppose we might be able to influence the faculty by Jan Preiss' petition |
03:46 - 03:49 | even though I've genuinely never heard of him. |
03:53 - 03:56 | Better ask my JCC rep... |