The basic programs of the Latin/Greek Institute enable students with no previous training in either language to cover the material normally included in four to six semesters of college-level Latin or Greek in ten weeks of instruction. Every hour of each of the fifty instructional days has been carefully planned to give students, by the end of the tenth week, both a firm knowledge of the fundamentals of Latin or Greek and substantial experience in the close reading of original texts. Daily attendance is required. Previous students who have completed the program with a grade of B or better regularly pass graduate departmental translation examinations and have performed successfully in senior level and graduate level reading courses.

The work of the Institute is extremely demanding, with the equivalent of one week's material in a normal college setting covered each day. Classes begin at 9:30 a.m. and continue until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, with only a short break for lunch. Quizzes are given daily. There are substantial nightly assignments and weekly examinations. The programs provide daily drills and a review for students who want extra help. Each student has a faculty advisor to help with any difficulties the student is having.

The Latin/Greek Institute should not be a student's first serious experience in the study of a foreign language. Applicants should demonstrate previous success in language-learning. The experience of more than twenty-five years has shown that the successful student will possess a good knowledge of English syntax, strong memory skills, and a willingness to sustain for a full ten weeks his or her commitment to the rigorous work of the program. No successful applicant should enroll who has any other commitment for the summer, e.g., term papers, job, family problems, or other demands.

Many students of previous Institutes have found the work the most demanding of their academic careers but also the most rewarding.

Twelve undergraduate credits can be earned in either language through Brooklyn College.

The first five weeks of the Latin program are spent in mastering the forms and syntax of the language while reading selections from the poetry of Catullus and the prose of Caesar. In the last five weeks, students study major authors and genres ranging from the classical period through the Renaissance. The literature segment is divided into required and elective offerings.

Latin Institute: Required of all students.

• Classical Prose: Cicero and Sallust. A close translation and comparative examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Cicero's complete First Oration Against Catiline and of selections from Sallust's The Conspiracy of Catiline.
• Augustan Epic: Vergil. Book IV of the Aeneid is read in its entirety with a view toward an appreciation of Vergilian style and poetic technique.
• Survey of Latin Literature. Lectures and discussions on the development of Latin prose and poetry from Livius Andronicus through the Silver Age and into the medieval period and the Renaissance. Representative passages are translated and analyzed.
• Latin Prose Composition. Simple and complex English sentences are translated into Latin with a threefold purpose -- to review basic rules of syntax, to expand knowledge of Latin syntax by applying basic rules previously learned to more intricate constructions, and to call attention to matters of word order, style, and prose rhythm in order to create a sensitive response to the art of Latin prose.
• Classical Lyric Poetry. Selections from the four books of Horace's Odes are read and analyzed in terms of themes, language, and metrics.

Latin Institute Electives: Each student will choose one two-week mini-course (18 class hours). A minimum of three of the following will be offered. 

• Roman Historiography: Tacitus or Livy
• Pastoral Poetry: Vergil's Eclogues
• Augustan Epic: Ovid's Metamorphoses
• Philosophical Epic: Lucretius' De Rerum Natura
• Satirical Prose Fiction: Petronius' Satyricon
• Roman Elegy: Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid

The first six weeks of the Greek program are spent in mastering the forms and syntax of the language while reading relatively simple selections of unadapted prose and poetry. In the last four weeks, students study major authors and genres ranging from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods. The literature segment is divided into required and elective offerings.

Greek Institute: Required of all students.

• Attic Prose: Plato. A close translation and examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Plato's Ion.
• Survey of Greek Prose and Poetry. Representative selections of Greek prose and poetry of the archaic and classical periods will be studied with emphasis on rhetoric, metrics, the development of style, and dialectical differences.
• Greek Tragedy: Euripides. Extensive selections from Euripides' Medea are read with a view toward an appreciation of Euripides' style, rhetoric, meter, and poetic technique.
• Greek Prose Composition. Simple and compex English sentences are translated into Greek with a threefold purpose -- to review basic rules of syntax, to expand knowledge of Greek syntax by applying basic rules previously learned to more intricate constructions, and to call attention to matters of word order, style, and prose rhythm in order to create a sensitive response to the art of Greek prose.

Greek Institute Electives: Each student will choose one two-week mini-course (18 class hours). A minimum of three of the following will be offered. 

• Greek Epic: Homer
• Greek Historiography: Thucydides
• Greek Philosophy: Aristotle
• New Testament Greek: Selections from one of the Gospels

The upper level programs in Latin and Greek permit qualified undergraduates who have completed the Basic Program in Latin or Greek plus additional upper level work in the language, or at least two and a half years (five semesters) of college-level Latin or Greek to read in depth a substantial body of literature. The programs last seven weeks. During the first week, students review intensively basic morphology and syntax and establish a common terminology. For the remaining six weeks, the major focus is on translating and analyzing a large body of material. Daily quizzes, special tutorials, and frequent drills are included. The large amount of reading is enriched by regular prose composition exercises. Throughout, there is emphasis on aspects of criticism that derive from a linguistic analysis of a text and that cannot be appreciated from a translation. Graduate students of literature and related fields are welcome.

Classes meet Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.

The upper level programs, like the basic ones, are team-taught, and faculty are available twenty-four hours a day. There are substantial nightly assignments. The work of the programs is extremely demanding, with the equivalent of one week's material in a normal college setting covered each day. No one should enroll who has any other commitment for the summer. Daily attendance is required. Eight undergraduate credits can be earned through Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. Whether or not these credits can be applied elsewhere is the decision of authorities at the student's home school.

No upper level program will be given in 2013.

Upper Level Latin - Works to be read will include the following (in their entirety unless otherwise noted). Additional selections will be read at sight.

• Cicero, Selections Philippics I and II
• Vergil, Georgics
• Tacitus, Annales 14 and 16

Upper Level Greek - Works to be read (in their entirety unless otherwise noted):

• Lysias 1: On the Murder of Eratosthenes
• Plato: Phaedrus
• Thucydides: selected speeches
• Aristophanes: Clouds

Additional selections will be read at sight.