[.ca] Introduction to Latin Prose Composition (ISBN 1898855439)

The best introductory manual available:
English-speaking students of Latin prose composition have until now lacked an introduction which is concise and easy to understand, but which loses nothing in accuracy. This book fills both needs admirably. Clarity comes from the rational order with which the author treats essential Latin constructions. Minkova moves from simple sentences to coordinate constructions, and from there to the various modes of subordination and their subdivisions. Everything is presented so lucidly that what seems highly complex in other textbooks appears simple and straightforward in Minkova's manual. This clarity not only comes from the rational order of explication, but also the excellent examples taken from Latin sources with which each precept is illustrated. In no other introductory manual do we find such full advice on word order. This too is rationally presented as a matter of ordering words within single propositions and ordering thoughts within a larger whole. Finally, something should be said about the suggestions for various exercises which the reader will find at the end of the book. Here at last we find creative alternatives to the standard exercises in translation from English to Latin found in other texts, a process which is not true composition, but mere conversion from one language to another. In Minkova's book, by contrast, we find many suggestions for exercises from which the translation process is entirely absent. These suggestions are augmented by excellent specimens of various types of Latin prose composed by the author. This book should be in the library of anyone interested in Latin, and especially those who want to master the active use of the Latin language.