Horace

by William Tuckwell

Overview

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544628998
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	04/21/2017
Pages:	60
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.12(d)

Read an Excerpt

THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES LJ" GRACE'S poems are of two kinds; of one -L -1 kind the Satires and Epistles, of another the Odes and Epodes. Their order and dates of publication are shown in the following table: 35. First Book of Satires. 30. Second Book of Satires, and Epodes. 23. First three Books of Odes. 20. First Book of Epistles. 19. Epistle to Florus. 17. The Century Hymn, about 13. Fourth Book of the Odes. 13. Epistle to Augustus. (?) 10. The Art of Poetry. Let us examine first the Satires and Epistles. The word " Satire " meant originally a farrago, a medley of various topics in various styles and metres. But all early writings of this kind have perished; and the first extant Latin satirist, Lu- cilius, who lived in the second century B.c., devoted his pen to castigating the vices of contemporary society and of living individuals. This style of writing, together with his six-foot measure, called hexameter, was adopted by theethical writers who followed him, Horace, Per- sius, Juvenal; and so gave to the word satire a meaning which it retains to-day. In more than one passage Horace recognizes Lucilius as his master, and imitates him in what is probably the earliest, certainly the coarsest and least artistic of his poems; but maturer judgement, revolting later against the censorious spirit and bad taste of the older writer, led him to abandon his model. For good taste is the characteristic of these poems; they form a comedy of manners, shooting as it flies the folly rather than the wickedness of vice: not wounding with a red-hot iron, but "just flicking with uplifted lash," Horace stands to Juvenal as Chaucer stands to Langland, as Dante to Boccaccio. His theme is lifeand conduct, the true path to happiness and goodness. I write sermons in spor...