Latin Language and Literature

This study programme represents an exciting journey to the origins of European culture and erudition. It enables students to get to know the thoughts and works of famous ancient writers, scholars, philosophers, generals, and politicians in their original form, as these works comprise the basis of the European values of humanity. The programme also enables students to get acquainted with the ancient Greco-Roman world in the broader context. The studies cultivate general cultural knowledge as well as analytical skills, which are nowadays required in several fields. The minor module of the Bachelor’s degree programme focuses on the knowledge of Latin language . As such, it primarily serves to the students of those study programmes, in which Latin is potentially one of the source languages (e.g., philosophy, ancient history, history, classical archaeology, study of religions, general linguistics and Indo-European comparative linguistics etc.). The major and the completus modules of the programme lead to the in-depth knowledge of Latin grammar, ancient literature, and other disciplines pertaining to all important historical and socio-cultural aspects of the ancient world via courses on philosophy, mythology, history, and other related disciplines and via excursions to significant museums. An essential part of the study involves reading texts in their original language, which allows students to gain competence in multi-level interpretations of the original texts (grammatical, literary, and socio-historical). The study of an Indo-European language with complex morphology and syntax will deepen the general linguistic competences and facilitate the understanding of roman languages as well as of a wide range of technical terminology in various fields of study. The knowledge acquired by the study of the ancient world and Latin erudition/culture leads to a better orientation in the majority of fields of European culture and scholarship.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• understand Latin texts and translate text of selected classical Latin authors (Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Ovid, Vergil, Catullus) into Czech
• recognize metrical structure of verses and read Latin poetry correctly (Ovidius, Vergilius, Catullus)
• identify and describe in linguistic terminology Latin morphological and syntactic phenomena used in classical Latin; analyse the structure of Latin sentence; translate shorter sentences into Latin
• work with scholarly literature of Czech or foreign provenance; use databases and other sources of information such as specialized periodicals, lexicons etc; make use of auxiliary disciplines for the work with classical texts
• identify basic stylistic and poetic devices used in Latin texts
• characterize the works of the most important Latin authors; explain the development of ancient literature and the dependence of Roman literature on Greek literature
• specify the main features of basic literary genres in ancient literature
• describe methodological approaches from the field of linguistics and literary theory used in classical philology
• interpret an Ancient Latin literary text in cultural and historical context
• write a shorter coherent text on scholarly topics

The Bachelor’s degree programme allows its graduates to work in various cultural institutions such as archives, libraries, museums or humanities-oriented departments of the Czech Academy of Sciences in positions appropriate for the Bachelor’s level of education. As the emphasis is put on the knowledge and command of basic stylistic structures of the Czech language equivalent to the respective structures of the classical languages, graduates are prepared for various editorial positions in mass media (especially in culture- and literature-oriented sections).

A standard length of a Bachelor's thesis ranges from 70,000 to 90,000 characters including footnotes, content, index, bibliography, and annotations. Student chooses the subject of the thesis according to his/her own preferences, either from the list of topics already available in the Information system ("Topic lists") or after a discussion with the potential supervisor. The Bachelor's thesis demonstrates, that the student is knowledgeable about both domestic and foreign basic scholarly literature written on the subject and that he/ she is able to work with Latin primary sources, to evaluate critically the state of scholarship and to formulate and defend his/her own conclusions.

The graduates of the Bachelor's degree programme in Latin Language and Literature may continue their studies in any Master's degree programme provided that they meet the admission requirements.

At the Department of Classical Studies, it is possible to study for the Master’s degree in Latin Language and Literature, Medieval Latin Language and Literature, or in Upper secondary school teacher training in Latin Language and Literature (a programme qualifying the graduate for teaching at secondary schools). All these programmes can be studied as single-subject or compound study.