A Note from Dr. Pat Larash
Although -- or, perhaps, especially because -- I teach Latin, my students and I spend a lot of time thinking about Ancient Greece, not unlike the ancient Roman writers we are learning to read in class. Much of what we do in any historically-informed class -- whether history, English, or one of the classical languages -- requires us to look at one period of history through the lenses of so many other intervening layers of history, literature, and art. Soon enough, my Latin I students will read a version of the story of Laocoon and the Trojan Horse -- a Greek myth, to be sure, but one that the poet Vergil reworked for the Roman audience of his generation. So, too, did the fashioners of archaic and classical Greek art interpret myths that were already centuries old even to them in the images with which they decorated drinking vessels, water jugs, and coins. As I write this note in Ms. Brown's room (the intrepid Science Team has taken over my own), I look around and see displayed on the walls projects where students have juxtaposed ancient, Baroque, and even modern interpretations of the same myth -- these days, a "Trojan Horse" is computer malware.
I was, therefore, delighted to be invited by Mrs. Brown and Dr. Alonge to help chaperone about thirty students from their Ancient History classes to view the Ancient Greek galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts for a class assignment last Wednesday. It was sunny, so we had a pleasant walk over. After we deposited our bags with museum staff, we walked through the rotunda and looked up to see John Singer Sargent's beautiful mythologically-themed paintings. We probably could have spent much more time there talking about Sargent's art, but the order of the day was ancient Greek (and Minoan!) art. So we trekked on through the Ancient Egyptian galleries, where some students started pointing out visual parallels between Egyptian and Greek sculpture.
Once we arrived at the Greek galleries, the students dove right in! Although they had some assigned questions to work on, many of them first (and wisely) indulged their natural curiosity and took a look around to see what the galleries held. It was exciting to see the students encounter millennia-old objects depicting scenes from myths that they have read and discussed in their History, English, and Greek or Latin classes. Students gave excited cries of recognition as they came upon not only characters familiar from Homeric epic but also inscriptions in Greek that ancient potters and painters used to caption their work. Dr. Alonge and Mrs. Brown kept busy flitting from student to student, answering questions and -- more often -- listening to students share their discoveries with their teachers and with one another. The trip was a great opportunity for all of us to see the myth of the Trojan War through the eyes of ancient artists -- and for me to see Ancient Greece through the eyes of our students.
Best,
Pat Larash
Classics Teacher
