Polyhymnia: The Rhetoric of Horation Lyric Discourse

Horace's Odes have a surface translucency that belies their rhetorical sophistication. Gregson Davis brings together recent trends in the study of Augustan poetry and critical theory and deftly applies them to individual poems. Exploring four rhetorical strategies—what he calls modes of assimilation, authentication, consolation, and praise and dispraise—Davis produces enlightening, new interpretations of this classic work.

Polyhymnia, named after one of the Muses invoked in Horace's opening ...