Magna Carta Latina: The Privilege of Singing, Articulating and Reading a Language and of Keeping it Alive

Why another Latin grammar? The history of Latin studies is strewn with the dead bones of textbooks, conceived in enthusiasm, published in hope, and interred in despair. ‘Magna Carta Latina’ began in Professor Rosenstock-Huessy’s son’s failure in high school Latin, it flourished in teaching generations of Dartmouth students the mother-tongue of Western culture, and it found its way at long last into the precincts of theology. Can a generation that knows no Latin reason, philosophize, theologize, sing, pray, or worship? The authors of ‘Magna Carta Latina’ answer No to that question and set out to supply the missing language. In Latin’s family tree, they assert, there are no black sheep or poor relations: from its earliest fragments to its latest use in our day, Latin is an organic whole. And the texts offered for study in this book bespeak this conviction. In one semester the basic grammar is learned, within a year a variety of Latin styles of moderate difficulty is mastered.