7 Horace

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a lecture

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A poet, a composer of odes, satires and epistles

Associated with the notions that “a poem is like a

painting,” that poetry should “teach and delight,”

as well as the idea that poetry is a craft whichrequires labour

His text was initially known as “Epistle to the

Pisones”

Ars Poetica is first found in Quintillan

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Takes the form of an informal letter advising would-

be poets of the wealthy

Technically a work of literary-critical and rhetorical

theory, it is written as a poem It is the first-known poem about poetics and as

such was imitated by several men of letters like

Geoffrey de Vinsauf, Pierre de Ronsard, Alexander

Pope, Lord Byron and Wallace Stevens

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Born the son of a freed slave, he was educated

at Rome, then Athens

It was during his lifetime that Rome was trans-

formed into an empire ruled by Octavian Fought with Brutus and Cassius against Octavian

and Mark Anthony

Granted a pardon and was introduced by Virgil toGaius Maecenas

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Stoicism – emphasis was on duty, discipline,political and civil involvement, and the acceptanceof one’s place in the cosmic scheme of things

Epicureanism and Skepticism The greatest poet of his age was Virgil

Aeneid is founded on Stoic ideals – as a wholewas intended to glorify and celebrate the Roman

Empire Ovid – Ars amoris – led to his banishment by

Augustus

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Metamorphoses – depicted Zeus as deceitfuland embroiled in petty quarrels with his wife,

Hera

Horace’s work lies somewhere between thesetwo poles of outright affiliation with the entire

political and religious register of imperial ideals

Horace accepted the Greek theory of imitation

while striving for originality in a Roman context

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(1) relation of writer to his work, his knowledge

of tradition, and his own ability (2) characteristics of the Ars Poetica as a verbal

structure (unity, propriety, and arrangement)

(3) moral/social functions of poetry, such asestablishing a repository of conventionalwisdom, providing moral examples throughcharacterization but also affording pleasure

(4) contribution of an audience to thecomposition of poetry (art and commodity)

(5) awareness of literary history and historicalchange in language and genre

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Was an acknowledged Roman literary genre

Highly personalized form of Horace’s text

disclaims any intention of writing a “technical”

treatise in Aristotelian sense Some of Horace’s richest insights take the form

of asides and almost accidental digressions

His “principles” are drawn from experience, nottheory

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“When you are writing, choose a subject that

matches your own powers, and test again and

again what weight your shoulders will take and

what they won’t take” (38-40) “As you find the human face breaks into a smile

when others smile, so it weeps, when others

weep; if you wish me to weep, you must first

express suffering yourself” (102-103)

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Calls for a “proper” relationship between formand content, expression and thought, style and

subject matter, diction and character

Horace’s notion of “form” encompasses

language itself – there is an intrinsic connectionbetween form and content (content cannot be

prior to or independent of form)

Old order of words passing away; wordsacquiring new meaning

“Minting” words – language being extended

through increasing recognition of its inadequacy

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stresses the amount of labour required for

composing good poetry

part of this is seeking out valid criticism of his

work from sincere and qualified people once a poem is published, the words used by

the poet will forever become public property, part

of a language inescapably social – “it will be

permissible to destroy what you have not

published: the voice sent forth cannot return”

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disembodiment of voice – once personalized, in

the form of speech, it now leaves the author

forever to become entwined in the huge networkof presupposition and openness to alternative

meaning known as “writing”

modern – rejecting the author’s intention as thesole determinant of a poem’s meaning –

meaning is determined by its situation within

larger structures of signification which lie beyond

the poet’s control

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end

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7 Horace