Latin

I have a confession to make: I’m in love with something dead.

Yes, I know it’s odd, but this dead thing has somehow found its way into my living heart. And although Latin may be considered a dead language, it has taught me so much.

First, Latin has helped me question the past. Over the past several months I’ve been working on an essay on Ovid’s theme of dark love in Metamorphoses. This has meant countless trips to the library and meetings with my advisor to go over every little detail, but I’ve had the chance to delve deeper into ancient mythology and learn how much Roman stories influenced later writers. It’s interesting to see, for example, how Ovid’s “Pyramus and Thisbe” tale is the original version of Romeo and Juliet, which made me wonder: Were all Shakespeare’s stories stolen? If they were, how much credit does Shakespeare deserve?

Latin has led me to a deeper appreciation of the present. Through reading Cicero’s orations, I have had the opportunity to learn about Roman politics and family dynamics, which has led me to think about my own family. In Roman culture, the father held most of the power and the mother cared for the kids and took care of the house. For the most part, that’s how it’s been in my family:my dad works and my mom helps us kids manage our busy schedules and runs the household. Honestly, though, I think it really works for us and is something that makes us special. In a world where divorce and working moms are the norm, I like that we are different.

Latin has also made me look to the future. While the Roman Republic was initially more democratic, it eventually became an empire. When I see the United States meddling in other countries’ business, or hear about the growth in federal spending and the increasing gap between the upper and lower classes, I can’t help but wonder: Is America following in Rome’s footsteps? What can we learn from its downfall?

Latin has helped me time travel. As a kid, I remember reading the Percy Jackson stories–gods who threw lightning bolts or goddesses who could make people fall in love and would start wars–and at the time, I knew the stories were based on Greek gods, but it wasn’t until high school when we were translating poetry in Latin class that the gods of my childhood reappeared. Because I’d been reading realistic stories for a few years, seeing these imaginative stories again was like being transported to another time and place where anything was possible and I felt like a kid again. And after falling in love with Ancient Greek and Roman art in my AP Art History class, I had the chance to visit the British Museum, where I got to see the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon ruins that the British stole from Greece. Seeing something that old made me feel like I was living in that time period.

But best of all, Latin has helped me see storytelling in new ways. Today, as an aspiring storyteller and filmmaker, Roman stories have allowed me to question the conventional and contemporary narrative structures that exist within our society today. So many of the major blockbuster films are similar in structure to Ovid’s stories. This makes me wonder: what is it about this structure that works? Why do we keep going back to it?

Appius Claudius Caecus once said, “Quisque faber suae fortunae”–each is the architect of his own fortune–and I think this is true. Everyone has their own story to tell and I want to tell my story through everything that I do, a story that is rooted in a traditional family dynamic, Percy Jackson novels, and ancient, stolen ruins.

While many say Latin is dead, I disagree; I think it’s alive in so many ways.