The Poetry of Horace by Horace
The Poetry of Horace encompasses the works of the Roman poet Horace, who lived from 65 to 8 b.c.e. Horace was born to a freed slave and initially lacked formal education, but he later found his voice in poetry after a tumultuous early life marked by war and loss. His literary career began with the publication of his "Satires," followed by "Epodes," and culminated in his renowned "Odes." Throughout his works, Horace blends personal reflections with broader themes such as the folly of human desires, the enjoyment of life's pleasures, and the importance of contentment.
His "Satires" are characterized by their conversational tone and humor, contrasting with the biting bitterness of his predecessors. In his "Odes," Horace employs various meters to explore universal sentiments, emphasizing the joys of friendship and the uncertainties of life. His later work, "Epistles," transitions into informal moral essays, where he gently critiques societal vices instead of aggressively denouncing them. Horace's legacy lies in his ability to connect with readers across generations, embodying both a celebration of life’s pleasures and a contemplative perspective on human experience.
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The Poetry of Horace by Horace
First published:Satires, 35, 30 b.c.e.; Epodes, 30 b.c.e.; Odes, 23-13 b.c.e.; Carmen seculare, 17 b.c.e.
Type of work: Poetry
Critical Evaluation:
Born two years before the Emperor Augustus, Horace, the son of a freed slave, was sent to Rome for the education he could not get in Venusia, Italy. In 44 b.c.e. he went to Athens for further study. There he met Brutus, after the assassination of Julius Caesar, and was appointed an officer in the republican army routed at Philippi in 42 b.c.e. Back in Rome, disillusioned, with his possessions confiscated and his father dead, he began verse writing. Vergil, attracted by his poetry, presented the country boy to Augustus’ cultured minister, Maecenas.
Horace had the good taste to destroy his early angry poetry. His first published poems were his SATIRES in 35 b.c.e., followed by his EPODES. Then, still more mellow, he published three books of ODES in 23 b.c.e.. During the last years of his life, Horace wrote his EPISTLES. In one ode, III, xvii, having heard of Maecenas’ illness, he wrote: “If any untimely stroke snatches you away, you the half of my life . . . that day shall bring the end of us both.” His wish was granted. He died in 8 b.c.e., only a few weeks after his protector, and their ashes were buried on the Esquiline hillside.
The early poetry of Horace betrays lack of self-confidence, as in his references to his “pedestrian Muse.” But the publication of his ODES gave him assurance, and after the death of Vergil, in 19 b.c.e., he was commissioned by the emperor to compose and read an ode for the imperial secular games. Later Augustus demanded odes to celebrate the military victories of his stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius.
In his poetry, especially in his SATIRES, Horace re-creates his era with tolerance and good humor. He attacks the vanity of human desires, yet stresses the need to enjoy the pleasures of the world. While professing the epicurean philosophy, he generally practiced stoicism. Though praising the pleasures of wine, his health was too delicate to let him drink deeply. And his poems to women were just as conventional. For only one woman, Cinara, did he show real feeling. His affection was reserved for the men he knew; and his sincerity and ability to project himself beyond the lines of his poems have won him innumerable friends through the centuries.
The poetic satire was the invention of the Roman Lucilius, “untouched by the Greeks,” as Horace declared, with its name derived from a dish composed of a variety of ingredients. Horace composed eighteen satires, in two volumes, but he made them more a friendly conversation than the bitter lampooning of his predecessor.
Book I, containing ten satires presented in no chronological order, was completed between his introduction to Maecenas in 38 b.c.e. and their appearance three years later. Number I, appropriately addressed to his patron, deals with Horace’s favorite theme, the folly of the discontented man who wants something he does not have: “Oh, happy trader!” cries the soldier, while the trader, in his ship belabored by the south winds, envies the soldier. The poet follows this craving to its most unreasonable form, the hoarding of money, though he does not advocate being a spendthrift. His council is that a man should so live that he can leave his life, as he leaves a banquet table, contented.
In Satire IV, Horace explains why he uses this form: his father trained him for a good life by pointing out as bad examples those who lived it evilly. Besides, the form allows him “smilingly, to tell the truth.” Satire V, describing a journey made with his protector, contains the poet’s reply to those who charged he was cultivating Maecenas for personal profit, a subject taken up again in Satire IX. His first contacts with the wealthy statesman are described in the following poem, which take a side glance at the vice of aspiring to a higher position than one merits.
The eight satires of Book Two, which appeared five years later, are longer and generally in dialogue form. In one, the Lawyer Trebatius Testa clears the poet of the charge of being too bitter in his first volume. Paradoxes serve as themes for two others: All except the wise are mad, and all but the wise are slaves. Three express Horace’s delight in plain living and his disgust at the vapid conversations overheard at formal banquets. He ends with an outburst against a woman he calls Canidia, who also figures in his later writings.
The earliest form of Horace’s lyric poetry is his collection of epodes, as the grammarians called them. Horace named them “Iambi,” a meter of alternating long and short lines designed by Archilochus for invectives. In these poems he expresses his pet dislikes, sometimes humorously, as in Number III, where he inveighs against the garlic in the food served at Maecenas’ table. At other times he really hated the object of his verse, as in Number IV, written about a freedman who proudly strutted along the Via Sacra, or in the poem which expresses his hope that the ship will be wrecked when the poet Maevias goes on a sea voyage. In two epodes, V and XVII, he comes back to Canidia, first accusing her of being a witch who uses her spells on men, and then, when he apologizes, portraying her as threatening to use her vile charms against him.
Several others have the form, but not the substance, of an epode, as in Number I, written when Maecenas was departing for the battle of Actium and begging his patron not to endanger himself. Best known of all is probably the “Beatus ille,” classified as an epode because of its surprise satirical ending:
How happy is his low degree,
After an enumeration of the joys of life in the country, the poem is revealed as the idle words of the usurer Alphius:
He called his money in,
To lovers of poetry, Horace probably makes his greatest appeal through his ODES, the artistic work of a mature writer. Composed after Actium, these poems were written between 23 and 13 b.c.e. The ideas are commonplace—the uncertainties of life, the joys of friendship—but they endure because they express sentiments that appeal to all readers. Number III, for instance, contains the much-quoted line, “Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.” Poets good and bad ever since have enjoyed translating these poems into their own idiom.
In his ODES, Horace used a variety of meters to suit his subjects. The earliest are the gayest; the later odes, reflecting his own failing health and the deaths of friends, reveal an artist of subtle elegance and an effective arrangement of words. Even his pensive reflections conceal subtle humor.
The culminating form of Horace’s genius was his EPISTLES. “You were the inspiration of my earliest Muse, Maecenas, and must be of my latest,” he says, beginning this form. One, Number IX, is a fine example of a letter of introduction, presenting Septimus to the future Emperor Tiberius. The others, however, are letters only in form, being more in the nature of informal moral essays. “Modernism is wisdom” is the theme of the first; but instead of angrily attacking vice, the aging but kindlier poet gently rebukes folly. At the end he sets himself up as critic of the poets and poetic movements of his age. Surprisingly, Horace devotes little time to Lucretius and Catullus, the greatest of his predecessors. Carelessness marred the verses of both; perhaps the fault which he considered the gravest of all blinded him to their many virtues.
Having completed twenty-two epistles, Horace wrote: “You have played and eaten and drunk enough. It is time for you to depart the scene.” He died, at the age of fifty-seven, one of the most genial and attractive of poets who have written undying verse.