Editing Classics (section)

==History==

===Middle Ages===
[[File:Catullus, Itally.jpg|right|thumb|alt=Photograph of a bronze bust of a man. It rests on a stone plinth, on which the words "Gaius Valerius Catullus 87 AC–54 AC" are written.|The Roman poet [[Catullus]] was virtually unknown during the medieval period, in contrast to his modern popularity.]]
In the [[Middle Ages]], classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to [[Jan M. Ziolkowski|Jan Ziolkowski]], there is no era in history in which the link was tighter.<ref>{{harvnb|Ziolkowski|2007|p=19}}</ref> Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models,<ref name="Ziolkowski07-21">{{harvnb|Ziolkowski|2007|p=21}}</ref> and [[Latin]] continued to be the language of scholarship and culture, despite the increasing difference between [[Classical Latin|literary Latin]] and the [[vernacular]] languages of [[Europe]] during the period.<ref name="Ziolkowski07-21"/>

While Latin was hugely influential, according to thirteenth-century English philosopher [[Roger Bacon]], "there are not four men in [[Latin Christendom]] who are acquainted with the [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[Arabic]] grammars."<ref>{{harvnb|Sandys|1921|p=591}}</ref> Greek was rarely studied in the [[Western world|West]], and [[Greek literature]] was known almost solely in Latin translation.<ref name="Ziolkowski07-22">{{harvnb|Ziolkowski|2007|p=22}}</ref> The works of even major Greek authors such as [[Hesiod]], whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of [[Plato]], were unavailable in [[Christian Europe]].<ref name="Ziolkowski07-22"/> Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations; a [[Toledo School of Translators|School of Translators]] was set up in the border city of [[Toledo, Spain]], to translate from Arabic into Latin.

Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the [[Western canon|classical canon]] known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. [[Catullus]], for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period.<ref name="Ziolkowski07-22"/> The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout the period: [[Lucretius]], popular during the [[Carolingian Renaissance]], was barely read in the twelfth century, while for [[Quintilian]] the reverse is true.<ref name="Ziolkowski07-22"/>

===Renaissance===
The [[Renaissance]] led to the increasing study of both [[ancient literature]] and [[ancient history]],<ref name="Kristeller78-586"/> as well as a revival of classical styles of [[Renaissance Latin|Latin]].<ref name="Kristeller78-587"/> From the 14th century, first in [[Italy]] and then increasingly across [[Europe]], [[Renaissance Humanism]], an intellectual movement that "advocated the study and imitation of [[classical antiquity]]",<ref name="Kristeller78-586">{{harvnb|Kristeller|1978|p=586}}</ref> developed. Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to [[Western Europe]].<ref name="Kristeller78-587">{{harvnb|Kristeller|1978|p=587}}</ref> This reintroduction was initiated by [[Petrarch]] (1304–1374) and [[Boccaccio]] (1313–1375) who commissioned a [[Calabria|Calabrian]] scholar to translate the [[Homeric poems]].<ref>Pade, M. (2007). The Reception of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum</ref> This humanist [[Education reform|educational reform]] spread from Italy, in [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] countries as it was adopted by the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuits]], and in countries that became [[Protestantism|Protestant]] such as [[England]], [[Germany]], and the [[Low Countries]], in order to ensure that future [[Clergy|clerics]] were able to study the [[New Testament]] in the original language.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 590">{{harvnb|Kristeller|1978|p=590}}</ref>

===Neoclassicism===
The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models.<ref name="Kaminski 2007 57">{{harvnb|Kaminski|2007|p=57}}</ref> Classical models were so highly prized that the plays of [[William Shakespeare]] were rewritten along [[Neoclassicism|neoclassical]] lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Kaminski|2007|p=65}}</ref> In the [[United States]], the nation's [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founders]] were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the [[Roman Republic]] for their form of government.<ref>Mortimer N.S. Sellers, ''Founding Fathers in America'' in ''The Classical Tradition'' pp. 367, 368 (Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, & Salvatore Settis, eds. 2010).</ref>

From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 591">{{harvnb|Kristeller|1978|p=591}}</ref>
In this period [[Johann Winckelmann]]'s claims for the superiority of the Greek [[visual arts]] influenced a shift in [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]] judgements, while in the literary sphere, [[G. E. Lessing]] "returned [[Homer]] to the centre of artistic achievement".<ref>{{harvnb|Kaminski|2007|p=69}}</ref>
In the [[United Kingdom]], the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet [[Walter Savage Landor]] claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at [[Rugby School]].<ref>{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=79}}</ref> In the United States, [[philhellenism]] began to emerge in the 1830s, with a turn "from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society, art, and culture."<ref>Caroline Winterer, ''The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Cultural Life, 1780–1910'', pp. 3–4 (2002)</ref>

===19th century===
The 19th century saw the influence of the [[classical world]], and the value of a [[classical education]], decline,<ref>{{harvnb|Becker|2001|p=309}}</ref> especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its [[elitism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Becker|2001|p=313}}. Educator Benjamin Rush, for instance, deemed the classics to be "remnants of an aristocratic education unsuited to a republican nation and an industrial economy." Margaret Nash, ''Women's Education in the United States, 1780–1840'', p. 218, note 110 (2005).</ref> By the 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 590"/> Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 591"/> In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. [[Composition (language)|Composition]] continued to be the dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity.<ref name="Stray 1996 81">{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=81}}</ref>
In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years.<ref name="Stray 1996 83">{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=83}}</ref>

Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and [[North America]] was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and [[Science|scientific]], especially with the "new [[philology]]" created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.<ref name="Rommel 2001 169">{{harvnb|Rommel|2001|p=169}}</ref> Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that [[ancient history]] and [[classical archaeology]] began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines.<ref name="Stray 1996 81"/>

===20th century to present===
During the 20th century, the study of classics became less common. In England, for instance, [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920,<ref name="Stray 1996 83"/> and in Latin at the end of the 1950s.<ref name="Stray 1996 85">{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=85}}</ref> When the [[National Curriculum (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)|National Curriculum]] was introduced in England, [[Wales]], and [[Northern Ireland]] in 1988, it did not mention the classics.<ref name="Stray 1996 85"/> By 2003, only about 10% of [[State school|state schools]] in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all.<ref>{{harvnb|Cook|2003}}</ref> In 2016, [[AQA]], the largest exam board for [[A-Levels]] and [[GCSE]]s in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, announced that it would be scrapping A-Level subjects in [[Classical antiquity|Classical Civilisation]], [[Archaeology]], and [[Art history|Art History]].<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/17/scrapping-archeology-classics-a-levels-barbaric-tony-robinson/| title=Scrapping of archaeology and classics A-levels criticized as 'barbaric act'| author=Sally Weale| newspaper=The Guardian| date=2016-10-17| access-date=2018-08-02}}</ref> This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject. The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians, with [[Natalie Haynes]] of ''[[The Guardian]]'' stating that the loss of the A-Level would deprive state school students, 93% of all students, the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private-school students.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/19/aqa-classics-classical-civilisation-a-level-exam-archaeology| title=Ditching classics at A-level is little short of a tragedy| author=Natalie Haynes| newspaper=The Guardian| date=2016-10-19| access-date=2018-08-02}}</ref>

However, the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe. In 2009, a review of ''Meeting the Challenge'', a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe, noted that though there is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy, it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools.<ref>{{harvnb|Balbo|2009}}</ref> The same may also be said in the case of [[France]] or [[Greece]]. Indeed, [[Ancient Greek literature|Ancient Greek]] is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek [[secondary education]], whereas in France, Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of [[Middle school|middle schools]] and [[Secondary school|high schools]]. [[Ancient Greek]] is also still being taught, but not as much as [[Latin]].