This last July, as recipient of the 2017 Amy High Fellowship, I had the extraordinary privilege of spending ten days at the beautiful Claymont Estate located in the horse-country of West Virginia and just a short drive from the historical exhibits of Harper’s Ferry, the site of John Brown’s famous raid, where I participated in both the Rusticatio Omnibus and the 20th anniversary celebration of SALVI. As a teacher and as a reader of Latin my Rusticatio experience was nothing less than a life-altering event. I applied for the Amy High Fellowship wishing to experience the spoken Latin movement; I hoped Rusticatio would inform my thinking as to how Latin (and Greek) might be taught in a more integral way. I did not imagine that it would revolutionize my own approach both to teaching and super-charge my own appropriation of Latin.
Participation in the 20th Anniversary celebration afforded appreciation of something the Rusticatio Omnibus alone might not have made so apparent: the accumulated effect of the Rusticatio experience, its affective tone. SALVI’s heart consists of an association of friends. Indeed, compared with other scholarly organizations, it is sui generis. The air at Claymont is loaded with gratitude and enthusiasm of persons returning ‘home’ to a place that has vitalized their Latin in ways unimaginable.
Claymont introduces one to a Latin-speaking world where a corporate resolve to speak only in Latin is facilitated by three cardinal principles:
Nancy Llewelyn fosters a low-pressure, easy-going atmosphere, a ‘safe-space’ for first time participants to begin their adventures sermone Latino. She assures participants, “I’ve got some good news for you, folks: you already know everything you need to know to succeed at speaking Latin. You don’t have to re-learn Latin — all you have to do is start activating the immense passive knowledge you’ve already got.” An encouragement which proved quite true.
The activity that demonstrated most clearly what teachers might gain was called Scaenae Praemeditandae. For these the participants broke up into three different groups. Two of the groups (consisting of beginners and early-intermediate speakers) prepared somewhat abridged versions of Auricula Meretricula. The third group (of advanced speakers) worked on what in the end would be a musical rendition of the same, with the libretto composed in part by Nancy and the music and direction supplied by Joel Derfner of the Musical Theatre Writing program at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Preparing for the lesser versions was great fun and the performances themselves even more enjoyable. Participation in this demonstrated that literary grandeur is not a necessary requirement for connecting students with the spirit, fun, and genius of Roman drama; that Living Latin (hereafter LL) practice can forcefully invigorate the experience of Latin when associated with staged productions however so humble. These convinced me unequivocally that the LL movement offers powerful artillery for teachers who want to enliven Latin instruction by integrating dramatic art, performance, and recitation.
I should mention, as well, the very enjoyable sessions in culina. To aid in the preparation of each group meal, the subdivided groupings of participants assisted the kitchen staff with prep-duties, conveying platters up and down stairs, and doing dishes, pots, and pans afterwards. This too was done completely sermone Latino, with much of the requisite vocabulary displayed on posters around the walls to facilitate expression. Operating in this restricted linguistic arena provided a liberating atmosphere for utilitarian discourse. This too I found much more enjoyable than I’d imagined.
My Rusticatio experience gave me a taste of what it would be like to be a multidimensional Latinist: speaking, reading, and hearing. The expectation LL-enthusiasts have, that speaking a lot will enable reading, gave birth to a reconceptualization of my own reading of Latin.
As speakers of Latin seek to improve their Latinity by extended periods of Tantum Latine, and as CI-teachers (viz. comprehensible input) try to Latinize their students by exposing them to swaths of comprehensible Latin, so I would strive to push as much classical Latin through my brain as I could. The Rusticatio experience catalyzed for me a conception of quantum of input — realized in a determination to ‘binge-read’ in individual classical authors, thereby greatly increasing the torque with which I plow now through Latin rendered comprehensible by traditional Grammar-Translation methods. I don’t think I could have ever come to this realization without my visit to Claymont.
The experience inspired as well: A resolve to be more attentive to the accentuation of words; a desire to develop fun and effective oral drills to inculcate morphology, syntax, and classical-era word-order; a desire to seek out audio recordings from classical-era authors in restored pronunciation; a resolve to heighten awareness of what is idiomatic to classical Latin; a resolve to spurn the gravitational pull of English habits (LatEnglish); a desire to cultivate dexterity as a Latin speaker for pedagogical purposes. These were the concrete adjustments in my Latin-life that came about as a result of my experience at Claymont. I expect that anyone who visits will garner unexpected and marvelous fruits from their adventure.