Iter Īcarī

Iter Īcarī (The Journey of Icarus) is a sheltered-vocabulary Latin novella published by William J. Simpson in 2014. It tells the story of Clara, an American teenager living in Miami, who finds a boy washed up on the beach. The boy turns out to be Icarus, the mythological character who famously plunged into the sea after flying too close to the sun on his wings of wax. It is notable for its modern plot, with scenes in present-day Miami and Nashville, It has no glosses, but is made more comprehensible through short, simple sentences.

Available from Amazon.

Reading level

The author’s website indicates that this novella is a step up in difficulty from the first novella in the series, Clāvis Apollinis, which learners can read after “fifteen hours of instruction.” Iter Īcarī would presumably be appropriate for the first or second year of study. Comprehensible Antiquity puts this novella at Level D, and gives a full review here. In his ranking of 13 novellas, John Piazza ranks it as the third-hardest.

Diverse & Multicultural Identities

For information about how representation of multicultural and diverse identities is analyzed in LNDb, see here.

Parallel cultures

No depictions identified.

Gender

Features one cis female main character (Clara). Features no cis male main characters or transgender main characters.

Sexual identity

Features a depiction of heterosexual identity: Clara has a mother and father, who are presumably divorced.

SES/class

No depictions identified.

Religion

Features a depiction of Greek religion: Icarus must pray to Athena at the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville to be reunited with his father.

Disability

No depictions identified.

Language Statistics

Vocabulary

Word counts may differ from the author's advertised figures. See here for information about how words are counted in LNDb.

Word List

A complete word list for Iter Īcarī can be found here.

Glosses

This novella contains no glosses.

Glossary

This novella contains a Latin-English glossary, with words listed by headword only. The glossary is complete; save for a few minor oversights, every word is included.

Syntax

The ratio of compound sentences indicates what proportion of the total sentences are compound sentences, on average. A compound sentence is defined as a sentence with multiple T-units.
The ratio of complex sentences indicates what proportion of the total sentences are complex sentences, on average. A complex sentence is defined as a sentence with one or more subordinate clauses or verb phrases.

See here for more information.

Summary

The graph above shows the vocabulary and syntax of the novella relative to the other novellas studied. A higher position on the graph means that this novella scores higher than average in this criterion. These scores are not necessarily tied to reading level; this graph is descriptive of the novella's language rather than predictive of its difficulty.

Genre & Sources

This novella is in the genre of modern. (Though the opening and closing take place in ancient Greece, the bulk of the story takes place in modern America.).

It is an adaptation of the story of Daedalus and Icarus, found in numerous Classical sources.

Complete Plot Summary

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Clara is a 17-year-old girl who lives in Miami. She is walking on the beach with her friend and they find a boy sleeping on the shore muttering in ancient Greek. Clara, who knows ancient Greek herself, helps the boy and brings him to her house. They find out that the boy is Icarus, the legendary boy who, flying on wings of wax, flew too close to the sun and fell into the sea. Clara and her father, an archaeologist, return to the beach and find feathers and two wings, proving his story to be true. To return Icarus home, they decide to go to the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, where Clara’s mother lives, to pray to the gods. Athena grants Icarus’s prayer, and he is reunited with his father.

First 100 Words

Underlined words are glossed in the text.

Est rēx nōmine Mīnos. Mīnos est rēx Crētae. Crēta est īnsula graeca in marī Mediterraneō. Nōmen uxōrī Mīnōis est Pāsiphaē. Pāsiphaē est rēgīna Crētae. Pāsiphaē fīlium habet. Sed hic fīlius nōn est fīlius Mīnōis. Is est fīlius nūllīus hominis. Fīlius Pāsiphaēs est mōnstrum. Hic puer, Asterius nōmine, nōn ut homō sed ut taurus est. Ergō is Mīnōtaurus vocātur.
Mīnos uxōrem suam amat, sed fīlium Pāsiphaēs nōn amat. Mīnos Mīnōtaurum timet et mōnstrum capere vult. Rēx servō suō dīcit, “Nōlō Mīnōtaurum interficere, volō sōlum eum capere. Invenī mihi virum summā intelligentiā quī Mīnōtaurum capere possit.”

Studies show that a reader should understand 98% of the words in a text in order to have a good chance of comprehending it. One rule of thumb is to read the first hundred words and count the number of unfamiliar words. If there are two or fewer unfamiliar words, it can be read without much difficulty. Three to five unfamiliar words is possible to read, but may be difficult. If there are six or more unfamiliar words, the text may be too difficult.

Supplementary Materials

If you have resources for Iter Īcarī and would like to share them on LNDb, please contact me.

Presentation

Illustrations?	no
Illustrator	N/A
Macrons?	yes
Font	Constantia
Pages of story	22
Total pages	32
Chapters	6

Key Information

Publication date	June 6, 2014
Publisher	Independently published
ISBN	1500130001
ISBN-13	978-1500130008