The Art of Poetry by Horace

First published:Ars poetica, c. 17 b.c.e. (English translation, 1640)

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

To Horace, this poem was the last of his epistles, but almost at once his contemporaries began referring to it as The Art of Poetry, and by “poetry” they meant any field of literary composition. Horace addresses it to his friend Lucius Calpurnius Piso, famous for his battles in Thrace, and to his two sons. Apparently the older son yearns for a career as a dramatist or an epic poet. While not a formal treatise or an abstract discussion, like the similarly named composition of Aristotle, the 476 lines of this unsystematic letter in verse influenced Joachim du Bellay in writing the manifesto of the Pleiad, and a century later inspired Nicolas Boileau’s L’Art poétique (1674) and Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism (1711). Some of Horace’s suggestions, like the classical five-act division of the drama, are no longer important, but today’s writers still can learn much from the rest of the poem. The double purpose of literature, a mingling of “the useful with the sweet,” has been quoted through the centuries in every literary movement.

One would be amused rather than impressed, begins Horace, by the painting of a creature with a horse’s body and a man’s head, with limbs from every sort of animal, adorned with feathers from a variety of birds. However, poets combine just such outlandish elements, adding “purple patches” where they are entirely out of place in order to give color and brilliance to pompous openings in portions of their writing. Therefore, he begins The Art of Poetry with a plea for simplicity and unity.

Addressing Piso and his sons directly, Horace confesses that most poets are misled by what looks like truth. When striving for brevity, the poet becomes unintelligible. Attempts to write smoothly result in the loss of vigor and spirit. Aiming at grandeur, the poet becomes bombastic. Only when he or she is guided by art can a writer avoid some errors without committing worse ones. The remedy, therefore, is to select subjects equal to one’s ability and to use appropriate language. Old words, properly used, seem new; new words, borrowed from the Greeks, may also have a place. People are admired for making over nature when they build harbors or drain marshes. Usage, then, should maintain or change the material and rules of speech.

Homer, according to Horace, shows the writer how to handle the deeds of kings and the sad tales of war. No one is sure who invented the elegiac couplet, but Archilochus devises the iambus, used in tragic and comic drama; and since it was born of rage, it is designed to record action. According to tradition, the Muses gave the lyric for singing about victories, lovers, and joyful banquets. All these meters have their specific uses, and the poets would do well to employ them only in their appropriate places, though sometimes a writer of comedy may borrow from other forms of poetic art or an author of tragedies set aside sesquipedalian words in favor of shorter ones to touch the audience’s hearts.

Horace continues by defining feeling as the true test of literary worth, for beauty of writing is not enough. Unless a writer feels, he or she cannot make the audience feel. One style of writing goes with a gloomy face; another sort goes with an angry one or a playful one. Nature first makes one reveal one’s feelings physically; then, with the tongue for an interpreter, she voices the emotions of the heart. There is also a difference in language between the gods and humanity, between old and young, between merchants and farmers, between Colchians, Assyrians, and Thebans.

Either follow tradition or be consistent in one’s inventions, Horace advises. Achilles on the stage must be hot-tempered, appealing to the sword rather than to the law. Follow tradition and make Medea haughty, Ino tearful, and Ixion perjured. If the writer presents original characters, they must be consistent. They should not be too bombastic or promise too much out of prudent fear that the mountain in labor will bring forth no more than a ridiculous mouse.

If the writer wishes the applause of an audience, he or she must paint accurately the characteristics of the four ages of humankind. The young boy is unsettled and changing; the beardless youth is fond of horses and dogs, boastful, scornful of advice; in middle age, people are ambitious but cautious; and the elderly are surrounded by discomfort. One should not, in Horace’s opinion, attribute the wrong qualities to a stage of human life.

Touching lightly on the rules laid down by classical dramatists, Horace believes in the superiority of showing action rather than telling about it. He does add that there are things too horrible to be seen. He comments on the number of actors—only three—and the place of the chorus. He comments on the rules and restraints of satyric drama. Then, after an appeal that Greek, not Roman, tastes be followed in selecting verse forms, he embarks on a history of the theater.

Slightly confused, he gives Thespis credit for inventing the tragedy, yet he describes him as traveling in a cart to put on plays in which the faces of actors are stained by dregs of wine. Then comes Aeschylus, with the invention of the raised stage, the mask, and the buskins. Old comedy follows, soon to degenerate into license, and the chorus loses its role of criticism of the characters.

Roman playwrights, he continues, tried all forms of drama, but most were not successful because they were careless. Horace adjures his student reader to condemn any literary composition that has not been erased and amended. Even genius cannot discard rules. Characterizing himself, he says that he is too lazy to be a genius; he will perform his duty and criticize.

Answering the question of what to write, Horace declares that knowledge is the basis of good writing and that moral philosophy will supply matter. Life and manners should also occupy a writer’s attention. The purposes of the poet should be to benefit and to entertain. “He has received the votes who has mingled the useful and the sweet, by instructing and delighting the reader at the same time.”

Horace continues to advise hopeful poets that people do not always expect perfection from a poet. Some faults can be pardoned, for even Homer fails at times, though usually he excels in his craft. Continued carelessness, however, is unforgivable, and eternally second-rate material cannot be tolerated. A person who cannot play the game should keep off the field unless he craves the jeers of the spectators. He advises Piso’s son that, if he should write anything, he should let the censor of plays see it and then show it to his father and to Horace himself. Afterward, he should keep it in his desk for nine years. What one has not published, one can always destroy.

The final eighty lines of the poem deal with generalities. In the early days, says Horace, Orpheus represented the dignity of poets who, by their wisdom, distinguished between public and private property, divine and earthly things, lore and law. By their songs, they won honor. Homer and Tyrtaeus inspired men to battle; oracles guided men by their verses. It is still a question for debate whether a poet is born or made, but without both art and study even a genius will fail.

The best of writers need criticism, but they should avoid mere flatterers. One good critic used to mark, for improvement and reworking, lines in poems submitted to him, and if the would-be poet defended his mistakes, the critic had no more to do with him. The honest critic puts black marks before poor verses as Aristarchus did to Homer. Self-willed poets will not like such treatment, comments Horace, but in that case they are not worth trying to save. They are probably mad, each one, like a bear clawing at an innocent bystander. Such poets will be one’s death, reading one their poetry.

Bibliography

Armstrong, David. “The Addressees of the Ars Poetica: Herculaneum, the Pisones, and Epicurean Protreptic.” Materiali e Discussioni 31 (1993): 185-230. Armstrong sheds fresh light on old problems. In particular, he discusses the specifics of the Epicurean use of free speech as therapy and its function as a model for Horace’s The Art of Poetry.

Brink, Charles O. “Cicero’s Orator and Horace’s Ars Poetica.” Ciceroniana 2 (1975): 97-106. An informative article clarifying the relation, function, and sources of the two works.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Horace on Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963-1982. The most comprehensive work on The Art of Poetry. Its three volumes explore the sources of the poem and offer an edition of and extensive commentary on the text, accompanied by discussion of the poem’s literary milieu. An annotated edition of Horace’s other literary epistles complements his views on poetry.

Frischer, Bernard. Shifting Paradigms: New Approaches to Horace’s “Ars Poetica.” Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Reexamines the problems of genre, addressees, and date of The Art of Poetry, reaching the innovative, but eccentric, conclusion that the poem is meant as a parody of pedantic criticism and not as a serious poetic treatise.

Harrison, Stephen, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Horace. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Critical overview of Horace’s life and work. Some of the essays discuss Horace and ancient Greek and Hellenistic poetry, Horace and Roman literary history, and Horace and Augustus, while others explore the themes and style of his work. Chapter 10 is devoted to an examination of The Art of Poetry.

Hills, Philip D. Horace. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2005. An introductory overview of Horace’s life, times, work, and literary influence. Chapter 7 features an examination of The Art of Poetry.

Oliensis, Ellen. Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Examines how Horace created a public self-image in his work. Oliensis argues that Horace shaped his poetry so he could promote his authority and remain deferential to his patrons, while taking account of the jealousy of rival poets and the judgment of posterity. Chapter 5 focuses on The Art of Poetry.