Master of Arts (by dissertation) — Latin Language & Literature postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Most weekdays I work in the dispensary of a community pharmacy, where a large part of my job is printing and checking labels. A label has to say exactly what is meant in very little space, and the patient reading it may be anxious, rushed or unfamiliar with the words. I did not expect this work to sharpen how I read Latin, but it has made me attentive to compression: to what a short phrase carries, and to how much depends on a reader filling gaps correctly. That attention is what I want to develop through a Master's by dissertation in Latin language and literature.

My Honours research essay examined Ovid's Tristia, the poems he sent back to Rome from exile at Tomis. I was interested in how the books present themselves as physical objects travelling to readers who may not want them. The first poem of Book 1 addresses the book itself, sending it off in a plain, unadorned state suited to an exile, and I argued that this self-presentation is not simply self-pity but a strategy: by insisting on the poems' shabbiness and isolation, Ovid gives himself a way to keep claiming an audience while appearing to apologise for doing so. Working closely through the elegiac couplets, I learned to look at how the pentameter often turns or undercuts what the hexameter has just said, and how small choices of mood or person shift the poem's relationship with its addressee. My supervisor pushed me to support each interpretive claim with grammar rather than impression, which slowed me down considerably but made my arguments far stronger.

For the dissertation I would like to extend this into a comparison between the Tristia and the later Epistulae ex Ponto, asking how the collections differ once Ovid names his addressees directly. I want to test whether naming changes the rhetoric of persuasion, and whether the earlier anonymity was a matter of protecting recipients or of shaping a more general reading public. I know this is a well-studied area, so part of my preparation has been reading existing scholarship on exile poetry carefully enough to see where a focused, text-based study might still add something rather than repeat it.

I have kept up my Latin since graduating by reading a set number of lines each week, currently working through Seneca's letters, which suit a short evening session and offer a useful prose contrast to elegy. I also revised my knowledge of metre properly, because I realised during Honours that I could scan reliably but not always explain why a line sounded deliberate.

Outside my studies, I sing alto in a church choir and have recently been asked to help newer members learn their parts. Much of what we sing is in Latin, and I have found myself explaining word stress and meaning so that phrasing makes sense, which has been a pleasant reminder that the language is still performed, not only read. At home I help my younger sister with her Afrikaans homework; correcting her sentence structure has made me more conscious of how I teach grammar, a skill I hope to use if I have the chance to tutor undergraduates.

The pharmacy has given me habits that suit independent research: careful checking, keeping accurate records, and working steadily through repetitive tasks without losing concentration. It has also taught me to ask for clarification instead of guessing. I am applying for a research degree because I enjoy sustained work on a single problem, and because my Honours essay left me with questions I would like the time and supervision to pursue properly. I am ready to give that work the patience it requires.