Online courses in Classical Latin
with George Sharpley
gdasharpley@gmail.com
COURSES STARTING IN SEPTEMBER 2025
Weekly sessions are taught online, on Zoom.
Recordings of each session will be available for 3 weeks afterwards.
Watch a video introduction to these courses, which includes a look at the influence of Latin on English.
BEGINNERS
This course will run on Thursdays, 6.30-7.45pm, for 10 weeks, starting on Thursday 25th September, 2025.
The course we follow is my Complete Latin Course (see below). We’ll be reading snippets from ancient writers, whose voices weave a narrative of the history of Rome, starting with the early myths and legends, leading up to Rome’s emergence as a superpower in the Mediterranean. There will be lines of poetry too, which we will read aloud, so you understand and enjoy it! The language content assumes participants are beginners.
INTERMEDIATE
This course will run on Mondays, 6.30-7.45pm, for 10 weeks, starting on Monday 22nd September, 2025.
We will follow The Complete Latin Course with additional readings from a number of authors, including Virgil, Horace and Ovid. To join this course you will be familiar-ish with all active tenses of all verbs, with past participles, and with all the declensions of nouns and adjectives. You will also have met the passive voice. If you are new to this course, please contact the teacher to discuss the level.
INTERMEDIATE PLUS
This course will run on Wednesdays, 6.30-7.45pm, for 10 weeks, starting on Wednesday 24th September, 2025.
We will follow The Complete Latin Course with additional readings from various poets. To join this course you will be familiar with all tenses of verbs, active, passive and deponents; you’ll be able to recognise endings of nouns, adjectives and pronouns (or aspiring to that!); and have some working knowledge of the subjunctive. If you are new to this course, please contact the teacher to discuss the level.
Course details and fees for online courses
The course fee is £98 for the 10 weeks.
Enrollers will be sent relevant bank details for payment of the fee (£98 for the 10 weeks). You will also need to purchase the coursebook, although PDFs will be available for the first two weeks on request.
To enrol or get more information, contact George (gdasharpley@gmail.com).
Courses run for 10 weeks, starting in September and January.
Course teacher: George Sharpley
George is a former university teacher of Latin who has created a variety of learning materials and course-books. More recently he has been working on projects to bring the poetry of Virgil and Ovid to wider audiences. “I’ve worked in languages all my life, and Latin in particular. I am fascinated by the language and the culture around it. I am especially hooked on the poetry, which I try to share where I can. It’s ironic that a language which has not exactly been on many people’s lips these past two thousand years should stand out for the beauty of its voice.”
The Complete Latin Course
Buy a new copy of The Complete Latin Course, as changes and corrections have been made to the first print of the second edition. You can purchase it directly from the publisher, Routledge, HERE.
A PDF version of the first chapters of the book will be available for the first two weeks if you have not managed to secure a copy by the time the course starts.
Events
Women in the Aeneid
at Roman Bath
At Bath’s historic Roman site, participants spent a day reading and discussing excerpts from Virgil’s great poem, in particular the stories of female characters like Dido and Camilla, who are at the heart of the tragedy, or tragedies. (15th February 2025)
“Excellent and inspiring”
“It was great to spend time with other people who shared my long standing love of the poem, and we were able to share so much knowledge.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed today, even though I probably didn’t understand more than 5% of the Latin.”
“George was excellent – non preachy – but very informative in a light and witty way. Thank you.”
“Excellent. Particularly the extra content on wider context. Thank you.”
“Lovely hearing the Latin read aloud, a real treat.”
The Song of Arms and a Man (performance)
“A brilliant dramatisation – warm, witty, bloody and cruel – and a sensational performance.” Prof. Tim Whitmarsh (at Cambridge)
“The Song of Arms and a Man was an enthralling and unique dramatisation of Virgil’s Aeneid … very easy to follow regardless of how much or little Latin each person knew … I cannot recommend this performance enough.” Safa Malik, The Virgil Society Newsletter, May 2023 (at King’s College, London
“ Phenomenal. Lots of our students were in the audience – thank you for inspiring them. I was spellbound.” Guildford High School (at Charterhouse)
The Latin Qvarter’s presentation of Virgil’s Aeneid is read by Emma Kirkby, Matthew Hargreaves, Ben Cartlidge and Maria Roddis. George Sharpley’s adaptation of a rarely heard masterpiece echoes the ancient culture of public performance of poetry, and is accompanied with live ancient music by aulos-player Callum Armstrong. The performance brings the thrilling epic alive, telling the story of Aeneas’ struggle to fulfil his destiny as founder of Rome – from his escape from the burning ruins of Troy to his asylum and heart-breaking affair with the Carthaginian queen Dido and then his reluctant war with the inhabitants of his fated homeland of Italy. Selections of Virgil’s epic verse are read in the original Latin interspersed with an English narration which tells the whole story of the poem. This innovative and acclaimed presentation was first performed in Gloucester in 2018, and since at Bristol, Oxford, Charterhouse, Cambridge, King’s College London, and is coming to University College London (10th November 2023)