Latin Prose Composition: A Guide from GCSE to A Level and Beyond

by Andrew Leigh

This book helps students to write Latin using increasingly complex forms of expression. Part 1 gives guidance and practice exercises for the new sentences required at GCSE, while Parts 2 and 3 contain a series of chapters of grammatical introduction and exercises for translation into Latin leading up to A Level and Pre-U. Part 4 takes students into more advanced areas of composition. Continuous passages are included from an early stage alongside stand-alone sentences. Leigh gives clear guidance on the characteristic features of Latin prose, such as word order and subordination, as well as more advanced grammatical complexities. At the back of the book, lists of vocabulary and accidence provide reference and revision tools for students at all levels.Working through the book the rewards of learning to write Latin are not merely a challenge to be overcome, prose composition gives a heightened appreciation of how Latin authors used the language to express themselves in their own particular styles.

231 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2019

Reviews

[Ian Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the subtitle makes clear, this book is aimed at a wide range of students from GCSE to A Level and beyond. It’s not specifically aimed at people like me. I did Latin A Level in 1995 (16 years after my “proper” A Levels) and I’ve continued to read Latin texts on a regular basis ever since. From time to time I read a book on Latin composition and do the exercises. Some of these are old stalwarts like Bradley’s Arnold; some are more recent publications (it’s good to see how hard Bloomsbury are working to keep Classics alive and kicking). This book was only published in 2019 so it’s about the most recent offering from this publisher. So how does it stack up against the old favourites? The answer is pretty well, if you are already proficient in Latin grammar. There are 31 chapters with an introductory section covering an aspect of grammar such as participles or temporal clauses. These sections are useful, with a variety of examples, but they are fairly brief so they are more like refreshers than detailed expositions. These 31 chapters also have a variety of exercises, both individual sentences and short passages. The passages are modern translations of an excerpt from a classical writer, so if you can identify the original passage, you can see how you match up to Livy or Cicero. The passages all have a useful gloss for proper names and unfamiliar words. Chapter 32 has ten passages suitable for A Level students, with some helpful hints on word order and other topics. Chapter 33 has ten slightly longer passages with more challenging opportunities to “turn” English phrases into good Latin. Presumably this chapter is aimed at first year undergraduates. Chapter 34 goes a step beyond that, with both longer passages and some more modern material (excerpts from speeches by Winston Churchill and Barack Obama!) Finally, the author provides a helpful grammar summary (with tables of verbs, nouns etc.) and a comprehensive vocabulary.
I would recommend this book for anyone who needs to do Latin composition as part of an academic course at school or university. I would also recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading Latin and thinks it would be fun (yes, fun) to be able to write it as well. There are plenty of online groups you can join where you can put your Latin skills to enjoyable use.