Latin

Course summary

Do you want to time travel? • After the hard work of the GCSE years, which are designed to lead to linguistic competence, Latin at A Level allows you to read and appreciate a diverse array of Latin literature. • The texts will range from history and epic to love poetry and those texts will present a picture of how the Romans saw themselves, their empire, their gods and even their women. • The exams will demand the capacity to translate and understand unseen texts analyse and write essays about two prose and two verse set texts, which will be studied throughout the course. • The linguistic challenge of Latin is considerable, but that challenge is a substantial help to the learning of other languages. In addition, the study of ancient texts leads you into a world different from our own, but a world which has had a massive influence upon our literature, our legal system, our architecture and art, our values and our view of ourselves. Latin may be chosen for A Level in combination with many other subjects as it complements and contributes to our understanding of all subjects, especially Modern Foreign Languages, History, English and Mathematics. If taken further at university, Latin may be studied for a degree in its own right or in combination with, for example, English or French. Many universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, also teach Ancient Greek from scratch so that candidates who have studied Latin can take their Classics courses. The logical and linguistic demands of Latin also prove very good preparation for those studying Law.