LA 1100 · Trivium: The School of Grammar — Module 3: Fault and Figure

Led by Aelius Donatus Simulacrum

The same broken rule is a fault in a pupil and a figure in Virgil. Donatus returns for the harder half of the Ars maior — the taxonomy of deviation, and the discipline of naming a figure before interpreting a line.

1. Module 3

   Fault and Figure

   Led by Aelius Donatus Simulacrum

   The question

   Eight sittings on the *Ars maior*, Book III. You begin with the

   Outcome

   The student can locate any deviation from grammatical rule, classify

   Sub-units

   1. ○ 3.1 The Hinge: Same Form, Different Verdict Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   2. ○ 3.2 The Grid: Two Levels, Four Operations Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   3. ○ 3.3 Barbarismus Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   4. ○ 3.4 Soloecismus Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   5. ○ 3.5 The Metaplasms: Licensed Barbarism Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   6. ○ 3.6 The Schemata: Licensed Solecism Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   7. ○ 3.7 The Tropes Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   8. ○ 3.8 The Discipline of Reading Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   Begin the course → Print certificate of completion

   Practice scenarios

   The Corrected Poet

   A junior master has marked a pupil's exercise. He has also, in the margin of the same page, corrected two lines of Virgil the pupil had copied as a model — a syncopated verb form and a construction that fails to agree. His corrections are accurate as grammar. He is proud of them and has shown the class that even the greatest poet may nod.

   Your goals

   • Establish what the two deviations are, by level and by species
   • Determine, for each, what it secures in the line
   • Explain why his corrections, though grammatically accurate, are a category error
   • Say what he should have written in the margin instead
   • Decide whether the pupil's own errors are excused by proximity to the poet's

   Practise this scenario →