why I'm pursuing classics
My brother asked me recently why I decided to pursue classics and I remember kind of looking at him confused before he said, ‘No, I’m actually curious. I don’t think you’ve ever told me why.’
To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever explained to anyone why, because I know why, and that was good enough. But I think I was surprised to hear it wasn’t obvious why I had followed this path. So I’ll dwell on it again now, because I guess it is a rather strange path that demands some sort of explanation.
There is something that feels intrinsic to me about studying classics (i.e. Latin and Ancient Greek language). I feel like I’m going home every time I open up a text and begin to pick through the words. There’s something about it that feels perfectly in tune with how my brain works. Maybe it’s because I’m solving a complex puzzle, maybe because I’m relying heavily on my memory, maybe it’s something else entirely, but I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
I have noticed instincts in myself which lend themselves well to language learning, but it was not smooth sailing when I started out. To be fair, I was young and silly and a bit careless. I did my work and I did it mostly well, but I don’t think I was ever fully engaged. Memorization was child’s play for me so I could recollect things quite easily, but whether I actually understood what I was reciting was quite another question.
That is until I was forced to pay closer attention to what I was doing.
And then suddenly in my eighth grade Latin class, I discovered a gift. I could be very good at this, and it actually made sense. I could be meticulous, and it was actually helpful. So it was a little ‘oh, this is the thing I’m the best at, that I’m better than most of my peers at’ for a while, but as I kept working, kept learning, that shifted.
I think it was while reading The Aeneid in Latin for the first time during my sophomore year of high school that I realized that I was never going to do anything else with my life. There was something about Vergil and the way he formulated his lines and conveyed his ideas that grabbed me by the throat and has never really let go.
I loved translating The Aeneid, and that experience made me feel more appreciative of the process of translation in general. But it was only when I reached college when the final stone was laid, because there I actually realized how much translation fascinated me, in all its complexity, fluidity, and beauty.
Now you might be wondering, why classics then? Isn’t it more useful to work with translation in a modern language because you can practice speaking it?
I mean I suppose so, but the fact that I didn’t have to speak the classical languages was actually what drew me so closely to them in the first place. I struggle a lot putting my thoughts into words and it makes me severely dislike speaking. So the fact that all I have to do is read or work through a line of text silently is my actual dream. Because I love learning other languages. I’m learning a few other modern ones at the moment, because yes, I love translation that much, but the fact I have to speak them is annoying to say the least. There is none of that expectation with dead languages and that’s why I prefer them.
There is something to be said for the literature as well. Yes, history has been incredibly selective with what has been preserved from that time, but it’s astonishing that I have the opportunity to read any of this at all; to glimpse for myself something that is still so influential to what we think now. The opportunity to read these pieces of mythology, philosophy, history and poetry as they are is too extraordinary to be ignored.
I’m pursuing classics because I want to. But why? Because it feels so me. It demands such meticulous attention and fervor and admiration, and I am willing to devote that time and energy, because I cannot shun the opportunity to engage with such influential history and culture hands on and the joy the process gives me.
~nan