Bringing Back Greek and Latin

There is a series of articles in Le Figaro Littéraire about one of my favorite subjects, ancient languages and why we should study the ancient world, including the following articles: Sébastien Lapaque, Quoi de neuf? L'Antiquité (What's new? Antiquity); an interview with Jacqueline de Romilly: «Le grec et le latin rendent heureux» (Greek and Latin lead to happiness); and Olivier Delcroix, Sfar festoie avec Platon (Sfar feasts with Plato). I am sad to learn that students in France are also less and less encouraged and even able to take Latin and Greek, although the situation is surely much worse here in the United States. One of the things I love about the school where I teach is that Latin is still required and there is the option of taking two years of Greek. Every once in a while, the school even sends off a graduate into a classics program, and that is very exciting. As noted in these articles, at the moment when interest in classics is at its nadir in the schools, it is all the rage in popular entertainment. Do we need any better proof that the myths and literature of antiquity are more relevant now than ever?