A poet’s thoughts should run smoothly and at the right pace; there should be a good variety in tone; and the poet should assume different roles suited to the matter at hand. Rhythm not rhyme is the essence. For whom bind’st thou Thus Christopher Smart entirely omitted Odes 4.10 and re-numbered the remaining odes. Pyrrha? Thomas Creech printed Epodes 8 and 12 in the original Latin but left out their English translations. By a process called derivatio, he varied established meters through the addition or omission of syllables, a technique borrowed by Seneca the Younger when adapting Horatian meters to the stage. Further, ancient sources have not provided enough about relative wealth in Rome to demonstrate that even a man of equestrian rank would necessarily have the wherewithal to afford an estate in the Sabine Hills. The witch Canidia makes the first of her several appearances in Horace’s poetry in Sat. Whether or not he actually witnessed the battle, the war, either directly or in the background, informs much of the book. Peace reigns at home, abroad, and, it seems, in the heart of Rome’s poet laureate. Yet, the book as a whole suggests a real balance, perhaps because the reader constantly feels Horace’s self-awareness as he portrays his world as a place where ethical considerations are always present, even if ethical ideals are not always realized. 2.6 and points out the complex presentation of the satires. While Horace studied, Caesar battled Pompey and his supporters throughout the Mediterranean, returning victorious to Rome in 46 BCE. Epist. [4], He was born on 8 December 65 BC[nb 4] in the Samnite south of Italy. But there is also a side of Horace that longs to be in the middle of the action, despite the attendant demands on his time and energy. later he shapes our hearts with kind advice, [nb 19] Juvenal's caustic satire was influenced mainly by Lucilius but Horace by then was a school classic and Juvenal could refer to him respectfully and in a round-about way as "the Venusine lamp". 1.6, a poem that illustrates Roman social decorum, a prominent theme in Horace’s poetry. The philosophy of the Epistles is professedly practical—whatever is useful for the situation or whatever suits the poet’s temperament at the moment. Horace was often evoked by poets of the fourth century, such as Ausonius and Claudian. "[nb 32] Matthew Arnold advised a friend in verse not to worry about politics, an echo of Odes 2.11, yet later became a critic of Horace's inadequacies relative to Greek poets, as role models of Victorian virtues, observing: "If human life were complete without faith, without enthusiasm, without energy, Horace...would be the perfect interpreter of human life. Beyond praises of the old-fashioned virtues of simplicity, chastity, reverence for the gods, tempered ambition, respectable poverty, and love of Rome, Horace’s odes praise the princeps himself for bringing peace to an empire torn by war. Various Italic dialects were spoken in the area and this perhaps enriched his feeling for language. Occasionally poems had had some resemblance to letters, including an elegiac poem from Solon to Mimnermus and some lyrical poems from Pindar to Hieron of Syracuse. To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, The sorrows of war inform a sympotic epode as well (Epod. under whose leadership, at whose hearth I am guarding myself: 1.5 has been read in various ways: as a political portrait aimed to influence Roman opinion, as a reminiscence composed primarily for the pleasure of his fellow travelers, as a realistic depiction of an actual event, as a purely literary creation, and as a programmatic poem reacting to Lucilius, who had also written a satire about a journey. Unwonted shall admire!). Whereas Archilochus presented himself as a serious and vigorous opponent of wrong-doers, Horace aimed for comic effects and adopted the persona of a weak and ineffectual critic of his times (as symbolized for example in his surrender to the witch Canidia in the final epode). 2.1.70-71), was eminent enough to be included in Suetonius’s biography of distinguished grammatici et rhetorici (grammarians and rhetoricians). Horace continued to inspire modern poets, among them Ezra Pound. What has Horace to do with the Psalter? [12][13] Italians in modern and ancient times have always been devoted to their home towns, even after success in the wider world, and Horace was no different. The Odes display a wide range of topics. 1.8, by a wooden statue of Priapus, the second book presents various scenes. 2.6 contrast with the extremes of philosophizing (Sat. Virgil published the Georgics (29 BCE) and began the Aeneid. 1.11). Horace was born in southeast Italy on the border between Lucania and Apulia (modern Puglia), where the Romans had founded a colony in 291 BCE after the third Samnite War. Apparently not slighted by the refusal, Augustus jokingly wrote a letter in which he assured the poet that he still thought highly of him, even if Horace had spurned a closer friendship. 1.10. Two of those six manuscripts are French in origin, one was produced in Alsace, and the other three show Irish influence but were probably written in continental monasteries (Lombardy for example). Iambic poetry features insulting and obscene language; sometimes, it is referred to as blame poetry. Horace should remember that he is also stout and could measure the length of his poems by the circumference of his stomach. [nb 25] Despite its naivety, the schematism involved an appreciation of Horace's works as a collection, the Ars Poetica, Satires and Epistles appearing to find favour as well as the Odes. [1] Nevertheless, his work in the period 30–27 BC began to show his closeness to the regime and his sensitivity to its developing ideology. Between the opening sketch and the maxim the reader is treated to more vignettes—the epic poet who puts purpurei panni (purple patches, 15) in all the wrong places (14-19), a self-indulgent votive painter (19-21), and an inept potter (21-23). Italy had been torn by strife for as long as anyone alive could remember and for the last quarter century had first teetered on the brink of, then plunged into, civil war. [nb 38], The Oxford Latin Course textbooks use the life of Horace to illustrate an average Roman's life in the late Republic to Early Empire. The fragmented nature of the Greek world had enabled his literary heroes to express themselves freely and his semi-retirement from the Treasury in Rome to his own estate in the Sabine hills perhaps empowered him to some extent also[47] yet even when his lyrics touched on public affairs they reinforced the importance of private life. 1.6.73-74), Horace’s father took his son to Rome for his education (Sat. Instead of rationalizing the potential for conflict, Horace points to it. [nb 23]. Balancing Catius’s amusing precepts is the story told by Fundanius, Horace’s friend and writer of comedies (Sat. And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.). [33] These social ills were magnified by rivalry between Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and confederates like Sextus Pompey, all jockeying for a bigger share of the spoils. (Horace, Ars Poetica 275-277) 14. After revealing to Achilles his fate in the Trojan War, the centaur encourages his ward to banish trouble and sorrows with wine and song, even in the midst of war. 2.2.43-45), where he may have tried his hand at writing poetry in Greek (Sat. [55] The letter to Augustus may have been slow in coming, being published possibly as late as 11 BC. Even at this early stage of his career, Horace may have had influential friends who recommended him for the appointment. By the time he composed his Epistles, he was a critic of Cynicism along with all impractical and "high-falutin" philosophy in general. stretch his bow. 1.1 and judges it excessive in Epist. A poetic talent suited only for lighter, personal themes provides Horace an excuse, in a poetic form known as the recusatio, for not writing the epic praises of great men. [70] Lucilius was a rugged patriot and a significant voice in Roman self-awareness, endearing himself to his countrymen by his blunt frankness and explicit politics. Thus he depicts the ups and downs of the philosophical life more realistically than do most philosophers. Not until several years later did he publish a full work, Satires I (ca. Ofellus lost his farm—but retained his convictions—when his land was transferred to veteran soldiers. [nb 36], Horace's Epodes have largely been ignored in the modern era, excepting those with political associations of historical significance. Many of the themes of the collection appear in the Parade Odes as well. [102] Among the most successful imitators of Satires and Epistles was another Germanic author, calling himself Sextus Amarcius, around 1100, who composed four books, the first two exemplifying vices, the second pair mainly virtues. The language itself should be plain and pure Latin, with no Greek neologisms mixed in. 1.9 also gives the poet the opportunity to reveal much by revealing little about the close—and closed—group around Maecenas. O how oft shall he 5). In keeping with one of the motifs of the book, both concern expert advice. Horace worked on the odes for at least seven years and published them in 23 BCE when he was 42. [104] In France, Horace and Pindar were the poetic models for a group of vernacular authors called the Pléiade, including for example Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. 1.4 when he encourages Albius to leave his pensive solitude. In Epist. [82] Odes 4, thought to be composed at the emperor's request, takes the themes of the first three books of "Odes" to a new level. In that case, young Horace could have felt himself to be a Roman[10][11] though there are also indications that he regarded himself as a Samnite or Sabellus by birth. Venusia joined the revolt in 90 BCE. 1.8). Lucilius’s persona was that of a wealthy equestrian confidently publicizing his opinions. 1.2) and friendship (Sat. Horace, Latin in full Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (born December 65 bc, Venusia, Italyâdied Nov. 27, 8 bc, Rome), outstanding Latin lyric poet and satirist under the emperor Augustus.The most frequent themes of his Odes and verse Epistles are love, friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry.. Life. The priamel of the first ode hints at other themes familiar through the Satires and the Epodes—a love of the countryside that dedicates a farmer to his ancestral lands; the ambition that drives one man to Olympic glory, another to political acclaim, and a third to wealth; the greed that compels the merchant to brave dangerous seas again and again rather than live modestly but safely; and even the tensions between the sexes that are at the root of the odes about relationships with women. Like Poe, Lovecraft began writing significantly more poetry than fiction, and at one point considered himself primarily a poet. quo pius Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, The second signals the balance and moderation that mark his work as a whole: “est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines / quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum” (there is a middle ground in things; there are, finally, definite boundaries, on either side of which Right is unable to take a stand, Sat. 2.3, 2.7). He attributed the lack of success to jealousy among imperial courtiers and to his isolation from literary cliques. To comprehend, but never love thy verse. The Ars is harder to classify, and interpretations range from a serious didactic essay for young poets to a parody of literary treatises. It moves from the particular (a snowscape) and its pleasures (a roaring fire and good wine) to a general observation and exhortation (weather changes; people should leave to the gods things beyond their control and not fret about the future). A perverse eroticism is a vehicle for invective against Canidia in Epodes 5 and 17 as well as in the eighth and twelfth epodes. Horace's Hellenistic background is clear in his Satires, even though the genre was unique to Latin literature. bound to swear allegiance to no master, The fourth satire roots Horace’s literary endeavors in the rigorous ethical training of his childhood and credits his father with instilling the lessons that inspire satire. There is no house more unsullied than [.]. his silent muse with his cithara; he doesn’t always As soon as Horace, stirred by his own genius and encouraged by the example of Virgil, Varius, and perhaps some other poets of the same generation, had determined to make his fame as a poet, being by temperament a fighter, he wanted to fight against all kinds of prejudice, amateurish slovenliness, philistinism, reactionary tendencies, in short to fight for the new and noble type of poetry which he and his friends were endeavouring to bring about. An officer in the republican army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became a spokesman for the new regime. The poet encourages his companions to turn a winter storm to their advantage and to chase away their worries with old wine, scented oils, and song. In Petronius’s Satyricon, the poet Eumolpus judges “Horatii curiosa felicitas” (Horace’s painstaking fluency, 118.5) as a touchstone of poetic expression. (Some scholars have suggested Asinius Pollio, the consul of 40 BCE.). Iambic poetry is appropriate for political expression as well, and the epodes reflect a poetic reaction to the political upheaval of their time. 1.7 vividly recounts an anecdote from Horace’s army days in Asia—a legal altercation (with Brutus presiding) between a proscribed Italian and a Greek businessman. The force of tradition is so strong at Rome, Horace complains, that the highly polished works of contemporary poets are dismissed in favor of the “classics,” the works of the pioneers of Roman literature, valued more for their antiquity than for their merit. In Epode 11 the narrator complains that he is love’s perpetual victim, suffering a misery not even writing poetry can alleviate; in Epode 14 being in love provides an excuse to Maecenas for promised but unfinished poetry. 2.1.214-218), a suggestion that implies that Augustus’s literary interests may have affected the emphasis on this genre. The literary theme was explored still further in Ars Poetica, published separately but written in the form of an epistle and sometimes referred to as Epistles 2.3 (possibly the last poem he ever wrote). But the Asclepiad meters, in all their variations, are only the second most common meter in Odes I-III (27 of the 88 odes). It was no idle boast. 1.19 might be motivated less by the reception of the Odes than by the opportunity to assert his literary program and expose the flattery inherent in envious imitation. 1.6). The Rome of Horace’s adolescence was home to ambitious and experimental poets such as Lucretius and Catullus (both of whom probably died before Horace arrived in Rome), Calvus, Cinna, and Cornelius Gallus, and to philosophers who lectured on Hellenistic ethical thought. In 38 BCE Virgil and the poet Varius introduced Horace to Gaius Maecenas (died 8 BC), a wealthy equestrian descended from Etruscan nobility who was patron to the new generation of talented poets such as Virgil and, later, Propertius. The date however is subject to much controversy with 22–18 BC another option (see for example R. Syme, "[Lucilius]...resembles a man whose only concern is to force / something into the framework of six feet, and who gaily produces / two hundred lines before dinner and another two hundred after." The careful arrangement of the poetry in the book invites division into parts large and small. To put them out of fortune’s power: Callimachus associates his iambs with the 6th-century-BCE poet Hipponax, whose work also influenced Horace. Samuel Johnson took particular pleasure in reading The Odes. learn to sing prayers, if the Muse had made no bards? The closest he came to receiving a letter was Epistle 1.13, a barrage of anxious instructions from the poet aimed at the courier who was to deliver scrolls of poetry (probably Odes I-III) to the emperor but directed more as a compliment to the emperor himself, expressing the poet’s concern for a decorous introduction of his work. Food is a natural focus for satire, and several of Horace’s satires center on food and mealtime decorum, but the “mixed plate” metaphor refers more to the variety of topics in this genre that center on human foibles. Horace developed a number of inter-related themes throughout his poetic career, including politics, love, philosophy and ethics, his own social role, as well as poetry itself. [113] Horace appealed also to female poets, such as Anna Seward (Original sonnets on various subjects, and odes paraphrased from Horace, 1799) and Elizabeth Tollet, who composed a Latin ode in Sapphic meter to celebrate her brother's return from overseas, with tea and coffee substituted for the wine of Horace's sympotic settings: Quos procax nobis numeros, jocosque Between this quite Horatian beginning and the closing sketch of the mad poet (453-476), the Ars is liberally sprinkled with observations, exhortations, literary history, commentary on the contemporary literary scene, and more satiric portraits. The two satires look at the context of the genre from different perspectives. Eight months later Maecenas invited Horace to join his circle of friends. Even the poet’s distribution of meter shows the consummate artistry of the Odes. [119] A pedantic emphasis on the formal aspects of language-learning at the expense of literary appreciation may have made him unpopular in some quarters[120] yet it also confirmed his influence—a tension in his reception that underlies Byron's famous lines from Childe Harold (Canto iv, 77):[121]. The second consultation begins the second half of the book. Born in Venusia in southeast Italy in 65 BCE to an Italian freedman and landowner, he was sent to Rome for schooling and was later in Athens studying philosophy when Caesar was assassinated. Horace The Odes, Epodes, Satires, Epistles, Ars Poetica and Carmen Saeculare. Between these sets are the two central poems focusing on Horace’s friendship with Maecenas, the first a narrative of a shared journey (Sat. Although he also had a home in Rome and later at Tibur, a fashionable resort town northeast of Rome, the Sabine estate figured most prominently in Horace’s poetry. The odes can be seen as rhetorical arguments with a kind of logic that leads the reader to sometimes unexpected places. [19] Meanwhile, he mixed and lounged about with the elite of Roman youth, such as Marcus, the idle son of Cicero, and the Pompeius to whom he later addressed a poem. Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are, Iambic pentameter One short syllable followed by one long one five sets ⦠Works attributed to Helenius Acro and Pomponius Porphyrio are the remnants of a much larger body of Horatian scholarship. He adapted their forms and themes from Greek lyric poetry of the seventh and sixth centuries BC. So too he enthusiastically embraces reflective withdrawal in Epist. The unknown poetry of the tragic Muse Thespis is said to have discovered and to have carried poems on wagons, which they sang and acted, their faces smeared with wine-lees. A captive Horace is treated to the various proofs that all fools are mad and only the Stoic wise man is sane, arguments that Damasippus has learned from a single encounter with the Stoic Stertinius, whose lecture he reiterates at length (the poem is 326 lines, Horace’s longest next to Ars poetica). [21], Rome's troubles following the assassination of Julius Caesar were soon to catch up with him. (So that what began on top as a gorgeous woman Horace, however, referred to the poems as iambi, putting himself in the literary tradition of the archaic Greek poet Archilochus of Paros, whose meter and manner he claims to imitate (Epist. [nb 26] However a measure of his influence can be found in the diversity of the people interested in his works, both among readers and authors. 3); her spells finally overwhelm the poet, who in vain begs release from his torment (Epod. It also shows the difficulties inherent in reading Horace autobiographically. in childhood, tweaks our ears away from smut; The first 13 poems of book 2 alternate between Alcaics (1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13) and Sapphics (2, 4, 6, 8, 10). [2][nb 3], Horace can be regarded as the world's first autobiographer. The letter is, in fact, a fairly lengthy conversation (270 lines) about literature. Horace’s own interaction with the social dynamics of Rome is also prominent in these letters. Housman considered the most beautiful poem in ancient literature and translated in 1897, moves from the flight of winter and the joyous return of spring to the ageless cycle of seasons and the ephemeral nature of human life: frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas, The sparring between Octavian and Antony prompted two peacekeeping expeditions to southern Italy. The meters in other books are also carefully arranged. Like the Eclogues (the book of bucolic poetry published by Virgil), each collection of Horace’s satires was meant to be read as a poetry book. The Ars is often linked with Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric (in the Renaissance they were sometimes considered virtually interchangeable). William Wordsworth's mature poetry, including the preface to Lyrical Ballads, reveals Horace's influence in its rejection of false ornament[122] and he once expressed "a wish / to meet the shade of Horace...". The point is much disputed among scholars and hinges on how the text is interpreted. By the time of his introduction to Maecenas, Horace was writing in at least two genres: satires that he called both sermones (verse conversations) and saturae (satires) as well as poems that he referred to as iambi (iambics), although that collection is commonly called the Epodes. Stuck on a horse’s neck, or the plastering of multi- The narrator represents himself as an enthusiastic, loyal, and deserving friend who has access to a close relationship with the powerful Maecenas. Horace’s ability to work complex arguments and homely commonplaces into verses masterly in their balance and variety has attracted admirers since antiquity. This poem has sometimes been thought to repeat inaccurate gossip against Horace’s own military past (referred to in Sat. The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings". The book opens in the midst of a consultation between the poet and the legal expert Trebatius. Horace was not alone in striving for inclusion in the Palatine library. Sometime between the publication of the first book of satires (35/34 BCE) and 31 BCE. The ten-year gap separating the verse conversations of Satires II and Epistles I does not suggest that the satires were badly received, however; nor are Suetonius’s remarks conclusive. [111] Yet Horace's lyrics could offer inspiration to libertines as well as moralists, and neo-Latin sometimes served as a kind of discrete veil for the risqué. Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse Ben Jonson put Horace on the stage in 1601 in Poetaster, along with other classical Latin authors, giving them all their own verses to speak in translation. The emperor should especially value the writers whose work is aimed at a small, select audience of readers, rather than those who seek to please the masses by writing for large public performances. When the republican leader Marcus Brutus arrived in Athens about six months after Caesar’s death, Horace left school to become a tribune in Brutus’s army (43 BCE, Epist. In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry⦠Both take place during the December Saturnalia, when the distinction between slaves and masters is blurred. Traube had focused too much on Horace's Satires. The Ars Poetica has "exercised a great influence in later ages on European literature, notably on French drama" and has inspired poets and authors since it was written. The Hellenizing tendencies of Golden Age Latin reached their apex in the epic poetry of Vergil, the odes and satires of Horace and the elegiac couplets of Ovid. Sat. His boast of immortalityâthat he, a man of humble beginnings, will continue to win praise and appear contemporary in succeeding agesâhas ⦠“What is true and fitting?” I am gathering and storing 1.5, 1.7, 1.9) or, in Sat. [8] Such state-sponsored migration must have added still more linguistic variety to the area. Please try reading slowly to identify the rhythm of the first verse of each poem, before reading the ⦠[131], This article is about the Roman poet. [nb 30] John Keats echoed the opening of Horace's Epodes 14 in the opening lines of Ode to a Nightingale. To emulate the Roman fire? mihi dum tibique Such exploration of place encompasses intangible place as well. In Sat. The impulse to diminish contemporary literature has not, he says, discouraged his countrymen from trying their hands at verse. Many of Horace’s odes reflect and reinforce the call to renewal at the heart of Augustus’s program. [118], Horace maintained a central role in the education of English-speaking elites right up until the 1960s. Compared to Horace’s Odes, “All the rest of poetry becomes, in contrast, something too popular—a mere garrulity of feelings” (“What I owe to the ancients,” Twilight of the Idols, 1). [43][nb 7] By then Horace had already received from Maecenas the famous gift of his Sabine farm, probably not long after the publication of the first book of Satires. Horace’s final book of odes insured that the memory of Augustus and his stepsons would not lack a sacred poet. How would the choirs of virgin girls and boys After honoring Maecenas and Augustus with the first and second odes, Horace reserves the third for Virgil. [69], The satirical poet Lucilius was a senator's son who could castigate his peers with impunity. As the book opens, Horace, despite his unwarlike character, announces he will follow Maecenas anywhere, even off to war. 'Political' Epodes are 1, 7, 9, 16; notably obscene Epodes are 8 and 12. To children ardent for some desperate glory, The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est [27] In reality, there was no money to be had from versifying. His Epodes and Satires are forms of 'blame poetry' and both have a natural affinity with the moralising and diatribes of Cynicism. Quintilian 10.1.96. The human weaknesses catalogued in the first poem show the Epistles are a continuation of, rather than a break from, Horace’s earlier poetry; the ethical concerns that had been part of the fabric of his lyric poetry and of his satires have become the explicit focus of the letters. His verses stand in stark contrast to the patriotic poems of war written by earlier poets of Great Britain, such as Rupert Brooke. [79] Although he is often thought of as an overly intellectual lover, he is ingenious in representing passion. Calpurnius Piso (consul in 23 BCE) and his two sons, or perhaps the father of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Pontifex), Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, who was the patron of the Epicurean philosopher and poet Philodemus, whose work both Horace and Virgil knew and admired. For Longinus, great literature conveys an intellectual and emotional thrill to the reader. [nb 31], The Roman poet was presented in the nineteenth century as an honorary English gentleman. E. Fraenkel is among the admirers repulsed by these two poems, for another view of which see for example Dee Lesser Clayman, 'Horace's Epodes VIII and XII: More than Clever Obscenity? He also removed the ending of Odes 4.1. In the final poem of Epistles I, the poet addresses the book, personified as a slave eager to run off and try his luck in Rome. Although Horace did not have the education of the truly rich (both Cicero’s son and nephew, for example, were privately educated at the home of Crassus), he did have the best of a semiprivate education: his teacher, Orbilius (Epist. Horace was a mere freedman's son who had to tread carefully. The content of his poems however was restricted to simple piety. One modern scholar has speculated that authors who imitated Horace in accentual rhythms (including stressed Latin and vernacular languages) may have considered their work a natural sequel to Horace's metrical variety. Since Florus is traveling (Florus accompanied Tiberius to Armenia, Epist. For one modern scholar, however, Horace's personal qualities are more notable than the monumental quality of his achievement: ... when we hear his name we don't really think of a monument. Horace's influence can be observed in the work of his near contemporaries, Ovid and Propertius. Lydia is also the subject of three other erotic odes (Odes 1.13, 1.25, 3.9). Tapers off cleverly into the tail of a black fish). 1.10. In “After Horace” the poet Michael Longley suggests that the present-day reader might profit from closer attention to the aesthetics of the Ars: We postmodernists can live with that human head
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