Classics and Beginners' Italian
Classics and Italian at the University of Oxford is a programme that connects the ancient world with the modern one through language, literature, and culture. Classics encompasses the study of ancient Greek and Latin in their literary, historical, and philosophical dimensions, giving you access to the foundational texts of Western civilisation: Homer, Plato, Virgil, Cicero, Thucydides, and the philosophical and scientific traditions that flowed from their work. Italian is a modern language that carries the heritage of the classical world into the present, through Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the extraordinary cultural flowering of the Renaissance and beyond.
This four-year full-time programme at Oxford is designed for students who have no prior knowledge of Italian: the language is taught from scratch, and the programme takes you to a high level of reading and communicative proficiency through intensive study. The classics strand draws on Oxford's exceptional resources in ancient languages, archaeology, and ancient history, and the tutorial system ensures that you engage with primary texts and scholarly debates at the very highest level. The connection between the classical and the Italian traditions is illuminated throughout the programme, as you trace the ways in which Roman culture, literature, and philosophy were rediscovered, reimagined, and transformed in medieval and Renaissance Italy.
Graduates from classics and Italian programmes pursue careers in academia, the law, journalism, publishing, the arts and cultural sector, translation, education, international business, and the civil service. Oxford's reputation and the depth of literary and linguistic education the programme provides are significant assets in any career. Postgraduate options include classics, Italian studies, Renaissance studies, translation, and medieval and early modern history, and the research skills and linguistic depth developed at Oxford are excellent preparation for doctoral work in any of these areas.