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==Reception==
[[File:Quinto Orazio Flacco.jpg|thumb|Horace, portrayed by [[Giacomo Di Chirico]]]]
The reception of Horace's work has varied from one epoch to another and varied markedly even in his own lifetime. ''Odes'' 1–3 were not well received when first 'published' in Rome, yet Augustus later commissioned a ceremonial ode for the Centennial Games in 17 BC and also encouraged the publication of ''Odes'' 4, after which Horace's reputation as Rome's premier lyricist was assured. His Odes were to become the best received of all his poems in ancient times, acquiring a classic status that discouraged imitation: no other poet produced a comparable body of lyrics in the four centuries that followed[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 279] (though that might also be attributed to social causes, particularly the parasitism that Italy was sinking into).[V. Kiernan, ''Horace: Poetics and Politics'', 176] In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ode-writing became highly fashionable in England and a large number of aspiring poets imitated Horace both in English and in Latin.[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 326, 332]
In a verse epistle to Augustus (Epistle 2.1), in 12 BC, Horace argued for classic status to be awarded to contemporary poets, including Virgil and apparently himself.[R. Lyme, ''Augustan Poetry and Society'', 603] In the final poem of his third book of Odes he claimed to have created for himself a monument more durable than bronze ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius", ''[[Carmina]]'' 3.30.1). For one modern scholar, however, Horace's personal qualities are more notable than the monumental quality of his achievement:
{{quote|... when we hear his name we don't really think of a monument. We think rather of a voice which varies in tone and resonance but is always recognizable, and which by its unsentimental humanity evokes a very special blend of liking and respect.|[[Niall Rudd]][[[Niall Rudd]], ''The Satires of Horace and Persius'', 14]}}
Yet for men like [[Wilfred Owen]], scarred by experiences of World War I, his poetry stood for discredited values:
{{poemquote|
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.[Wilfred Owen, ''[[Dulce et decorum est]]'' (1917), echoes a line from ''Carmina'' 3.2.13, "it is sweet and honourable to die for one's country", cited by Stephen Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 340.]
}}
The same motto, ''[[Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori]]'', had been adapted to the ethos of martyrdom in the lyrics of early Christian poets like [[Prudentius]].[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 282–83]
These preliminary comments touch on a small sample of developments in the reception of Horace's work. More developments are covered epoch by epoch in the following sections.
===Antiquity===
Horace's influence can be observed in the work of his near contemporaries, [[Ovid]] and [[Propertius]]. Ovid followed his example in creating a completely natural style of expression in hexameter verse, and Propertius cheekily mimicked him in his third book of elegies.[Propertius published his third book of elegies within a year or two of Horace's Odes 1–3 and mimicked him, for example, in the opening lines, characterizing himself in terms borrowed from Odes 3.1.13 and 3.30.13–14, as a priest of the Muses and as an adaptor of Greek forms of poetry (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 227)] His ''Epistles'' provided them both with a model for their own verse letters and it also shaped Ovid's exile poetry.[Ovid for example probably borrowed from Horace's ''Epistle'' 1.20 the image of a poetry book as a slave boy eager to leave home, adapting it to the opening poems of ''Tristia'' 1 and 3 (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace''), and ''Tristia'' 2 may be understood as a counterpart to Horace's ''Epistles'' 2.1, both being letters addressed to Augustus on literary themes (A. Barchiesi, ''Speaking Volumes'', 79–103)]
His influence had a perverse aspect. As mentioned before, the brilliance of his ''Odes'' may have discouraged imitation. Conversely, they may have created a vogue for the lyrics of the archaic Greek poet [[Pindar]], due to the fact that Horace had neglected that style of lyric (see [[Pindar#Influence and legacy|Influence and Legacy of Pindar]]).[R. Tarrant, Ancient receptions of Horace, 280] The iambic genre seems almost to have disappeared after publication of Horace's ''Epodes''. Ovid's ''Ibis'' was a rare attempt at the form but it was inspired mainly by [[Callimachus]], and there are some iambic elements in [[Martial]] but the main influence there was [[Catullus]].[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 278] A revival of popular interest in the satires of Lucilius may have been inspired by Horace's criticism of his unpolished style. Both Horace and Lucilius were considered good role-models by [[Persius]], who critiqued his own satires as lacking both the acerbity of Lucillius and the gentler touch of Horace.[The comment is in Persius 1.114–18, yet that same satire has been found to have nearly 80 reminiscences of Horace; see D. Hooley, ''The Knotted Thong'', 29] [[Juvenal]]'s caustic satire was influenced mainly by Lucilius but Horace by then was a school classic and Juvenal could refer to him respectfully and in a round-about way as "''the Venusine lamp''".[The allusion to ''Venusine'' comes via Horace's ''Sermones'' 2.1.35, while ''lamp'' signifies the lucubrations of a conscientious poet. According to Quintilian (93), however, many people in Flavian Rome preferred Lucilius not only to Horace but to all other Latin poets (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 279)]
[[Statius]] paid homage to Horace by composing one poem in Sapphic and one in Alcaic meter (the verse forms most often associated with ''Odes''), which he included in his collection of occasional poems, ''Silvae''. Ancient scholars wrote commentaries on the lyric meters of the ''Odes'', including the scholarly poet [[Caesius Bassus]]. By a process called ''derivatio'', he varied established meters through the addition or omission of syllables, a technique borrowed by [[Seneca the Younger]] when adapting Horatian meters to the stage.[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 280–81]
Horace's poems continued to be school texts into late antiquity. Works attributed to [[Helenius Acro]] and [[Pomponius Porphyrio]] are the remnants of a much larger body of Horatian scholarship. Porphyrio arranged the poems in non-chronological order, beginning with the ''Odes'', because of their general popularity and their appeal to scholars (the ''Odes'' were to retain this privileged position in the medieval manuscript tradition and thus in modern editions also). Horace was often evoked by poets of the fourth century, such as [[Ausonius]] and [[Claudian]]. [[Prudentius]] presented himself as a Christian Horace, adapting Horatian meters to his own poetry and giving Horatian motifs a Christian tone.[Prudentius sometimes alludesto the ''Odes'' in a negative context, as expressions of a secular life he is abandoning. Thus for example ''male pertinax'', employed in Prudentius's ''Praefatio'' to describe a willful desire for victory, is lifted from ''Odes'' 1.9.24, where it describes a girl's half-hearted resistance to seduction. Elsewhere he borrows ''dux bone'' from ''Odes'' 4.5.5 and 37, where it refers to Augustus, and applies it to Christ (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 282] On the other hand, [[St Jerome]], modelled an uncompromising response to the pagan Horace, observing: "''What harmony can there be between Christ and the Devil? What has Horace to do with the Psalter?''"[St Jerome, ''Epistles'' 22.29, incorporating a quote from ''2 'Corinthians'' 6.14: ''qui consensus Christo et Belial? quid facit cum psalterio Horatius?''(cited by K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 292)] By the early sixth century, Horace and Prudentius were both part of a classical heritage that was struggling to survive the disorder of the times. [[Boethius]], the last major author of classical Latin literature, could still take inspiration from Horace, sometimes mediated by Senecan tragedy.[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 283] It can be argued that Horace's influence extended beyond poetry to dignify core themes and values of the early Christian era, such as self-sufficiency, inner contentment and courage.[''Odes'' 3.3.1–8 was especially influential in promoting the value of heroic calm in the face of danger, describing a man who could bear even the collapse of the world without fear (''si fractus illabatur orbis,/impavidum ferient ruinae''). Echoes are found in Seneca's ''Agamemnon'' 593–603, Prudentius's ''Peristephanon'' 4.5–12 and Boethius's ''Consolatio'' 1 metrum 4.(R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 283–85)]
===Middle Ages and Renaissance===
[[File:Horaz beim Studium.jpg|thumb|Horace in his Studium: German print of the fifteenth century, summarizing the final [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen XV|ode 4.15]] (in praise of Augustus).]]
Classical texts almost ceased being copied in the period between the mid sixth century and the [[Carolingian Renaissance|Carolingian revival]]. Horace's work probably survived in just two or three books imported into northern Europe from Italy. These became the ancestors of six extant manuscripts dated to the ninth century. Two of those six manuscripts are French in origin, one was produced in [[Alsace]], and the other three show Irish influence but were probably written in continental monasteries ([[Lombardy]] for example).[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 285–87] By the last half of the ninth century, it was not uncommon for literate people to have direct experience of Horace's poetry. His influence on the [[Carolingian Renaissance]] can be found in the poems of [[Heiric of Auxerre]][Heiric, like Prudentius, gave Horatian motifs a Christian context. Thus the character Lydia in ''Odes'' 3.19.15, who would willingly die for her lover twice, becomes in Heiric's ''Life'' of St Germaine of Auxerre a saint ready to die twice for the Lord's commandments (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 287–88)] and in some manuscripts marked with [[neumes]], mysterious notations that may have been an aid to the memorization and discussion of his lyric meters. ''Ode'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen XI|4.11]] is neumed with the melody of a hymn to John the Baptist, ''[[Ut queant laxis]]'', composed in [[Sapphic stanza]]s. This hymn later became the basis of the [[solfege]] system (''Do, re, mi...''){{emdash}}an association with western music quite appropriate for a lyric poet like Horace, though the language of the hymn is mainly Prudentian.[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 288–89] Lyons[Stuart Lyons, Horace's Odes and the Mystery of Do-Re-Mi] argues that the melody in question was linked with Horace's Ode well before Guido d'Arezzo fitted [[Ut queant laxis]] to it. However, the melody is unlikely to be a survivor from classical times, although Ovid[Tristia, 4.10.49–50] testifies to Horace's use of the lyre while performing his Odes.
The German scholar, [[Ludwig Traube (palaeographer)|Ludwig Traube]], once dubbed the tenth and eleventh centuries ''The age of Horace'' (''aetas Horatiana''), and placed it between the ''aetas Vergiliana'' of the eighth and ninth centuries, and the ''aetas Ovidiana'' of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a distinction supposed to reflect the dominant classical Latin influences of those times. Such a distinction is over-schematized since Horace was a substantial influence in the ninth century as well. Traube had focused too much on Horace's ''Satires''.[B. Bischoff, ''Living with the satirists'', 83–95] Almost all of Horace's work found favour in the Medieval period. In fact medieval scholars were also guilty of over-schematism, associating Horace's different genres with the different ages of man. A twelfth-century scholar encapsulated the theory: "...Horace wrote four different kinds of poems on account of the four ages, the ''Odes'' for boys, the ''Ars Poetica'' for young men, the ''Satires'' for mature men, the ''Epistles'' for old and complete men."[K. Friis-Jensen,''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 291] It was even thought that Horace had composed his works in the order in which they had been placed by ancient scholars.[According to a medieval French commentary on the ''Satires'': "...first he composed his lyrics, and in them, speaking to the young, as it were, he took as subject-matter love affairs and quarrels, banquets and drinking parties. Next he wrote his ''Epodes'', and in them composed invectives against men of a more advanced and more dishonourable age...He next wrote his book about the ''Ars Poetica'', and in that instructed men of his own profession to write well...Later he added his book of ''Satires'', in which he reproved those who had fallen a prey to various kinds of vices. Finally, he finished his oeuvre with the ''Epistles'', and in them, following the method of a good farmer, he sowed the virtues where he had rooted out the vices." (cited by K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 294–302)] Despite its naivety, the schematism involved an appreciation of Horace's works as a collection, the ''Ars Poetica'', ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' appearing to find favour as well as the ''Odes''. The later Middle Ages however gave special significance to ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'', being considered Horace's mature works. [[Dante]] referred to Horace as ''Orazio satiro'', and he awarded him a privileged position in the first circle of Hell, with [[Homer]], Ovid and [[Lucan]].[K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 293, 304]
Horace's popularity is revealed in the large number of quotes from all his works found in almost every genre of medieval literature, and also in the number of poets imitating him in [[Prosody (Latin)#Two rhythms|quantitative Latin meter]]. The most prolific imitator of his ''Odes'' was the Bavarian monk, [[Metellus of Tegernsee]], who dedicated his work to the patron saint of [[Tegernsee Abbey]], [[Quirinus of Tegernsee|St Quirinus]], around the year 1170. He imitated all Horace's lyrical meters then followed these up with imitations of other meters used by Prudentius and Boethius, indicating that variety, as first modelled by Horace, was considered a fundamental aspect of the lyric genre. The content of his poems however was restricted to simple piety.[K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 296–98] Among the most successful imitators of ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' was another Germanic author, calling himself [[Sextus Amarcius]], around 1100, who composed four books, the first two exemplifying vices, the second pair mainly virtues.[K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 302]
[[Petrarch]] is a key figure in the imitation of Horace in accentual meters. His verse letters in Latin were modelled on the ''Epistles'' and he wrote a letter to Horace in the form of an ode. However he also borrowed from Horace when composing his Italian sonnets. One modern scholar has speculated that authors who imitated Horace in accentual rhythms (including stressed Latin and vernacular languages) may have considered their work a natural sequel to Horace's metrical variety.[K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 299] In France, Horace and [[Pindar]] were the poetic models for a group of vernacular authors called the [[Pléiade]], including for example [[Pierre de Ronsard]] and [[Joachim du Bellay]]. [[Montaigne]] made constant and inventive use of Horatian quotes.[Michael McGann, ''Horace in the Renaissance'', 306] The vernacular languages were dominant in Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century, where Horace's influence is notable in the works of such authors as [[Garcilaso de la Vega (poet)|Garcilaso de la Vega]], [[Juan Boscán]], [[Sá de Miranda]], [[Antonio Ferreira]] and [[Fray Luis de León]], the last writing odes on the Horatian theme ''beatus ille'' (''happy the man'').[E. Rivers, ''Fray Luis de León: The Original Poems''] The sixteenth century in western Europe was also an age of translations (except in Germany, where Horace wasn't translated into the vernacular until well into the seventeenth century). The first English translator was [[Thomas Drant]], who placed translations of [[Jeremiah]] and Horace side by side in ''Medicinable Morall'', 1566. That was also the year that the Scot [[George Buchanan]] paraphrased the [[Psalms]] in a Horatian setting. [[Ben Jonson]] put Horace on the stage in 1601 in ''[[Poetaster (play)|Poetaster]]'', along with other classical Latin authors, giving them all their own verses to speak in translation. Horace's part evinces the independent spirit, moral earnestness and critical insight that many readers look for in his poems.[M. McGann, ''Horace in the Renaissance'', 306–07, 313–16]
===Age of Enlightenment===
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or the [[Age of Enlightenment]], neoclassical culture was pervasive. English literature in the middle of that period has been dubbed [[Augustan literature|Augustan]]. It is not always easy to distinguish Horace's influence during those centuries (the mixing of influences is shown for example in one poet's pseudonym, ''Horace Juvenal'').['Horace Juvenal' was author of ''Modern manners: a poem'', 1793] However a measure of his influence can be found in the diversity of the people interested in his works, both among readers and authors.[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 318, 331, 332]
New editions of his works were published almost yearly. There were three new editions in 1612 (two in [[Leiden]], one in [[Frankfurt]]) and again in 1699 ([[Utrecht]], [[Barcelona]], [[Cambridge]]). Cheap editions were plentiful and fine editions were also produced, including one whose entire text was engraved by [[John Pine]] in [[copperplate engraving|copperplate]]. The poet [[James Thomson (poet)|James Thomson]] owned five editions of Horace's work and the physician [[James Douglas (physician)|James Douglas]] had five hundred books with Horace-related titles. Horace was often commended in periodicals such as [[The Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]], as a hallmark of good judgement, moderation and manliness, a focus for moralising.[see for example ''Spectator'' '''312''', 27 Feb. 1712; '''548''', 28 Nov. 1712; '''618''', 10 Nov. 1714] His verses offered a fund of mottoes, such as ''[[simplex munditiis]]'' (elegance in simplicity), ''[[splendide mendax]]'' (nobly untruthful), ''[[sapere aude]]'' (dare to know), ''[[nunc est bibendum]]'' (now is the time to drink), ''[[carpe diem]]'' (seize the day, perhaps the only one still in common use today).[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 322] His works were also used to justify commonplace themes, such as patriotic obedience, as in James Parry's English lines from an Oxford University collection in 1736:[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 326–27]
{{poemquote|
What friendly [[Muse]] will teach my Lays
To emulate the Roman fire?
Justly to sound a Caeser's praise
Demands a bold Horatian lyre.
}}
Horatian-style lyrics were increasingly typical of Oxford and Cambridge verse collections for this period, most of them in Latin but some like the previous ode in English. [[John Milton]]'s [[Lycidas]] first appeared in such a collection. It has few Horatian echoes[One echo of Horace may be found in line 69: "''Were it not better done as others use,/ To sport with Amaryllis in the shade/Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?''", which points to the Neara in ''Odes'' 3.14.21 (Douglas Bush, ''Milton: Poetical Works'', 144, note 69)] yet Milton's associations with Horace were lifelong. He composed a controversial version of ''Odes'' 1.5, and [[Paradise Lost]] includes references to Horace's 'Roman' ''Odes'' 3.1–6 (Book 7 for example begins with echoes of ''Odes'' 3.4).[J. Talbot, ''A Horatian Pun in Paradise Lost'', 21–3] Yet Horace's lyrics could offer inspiration to libertines as well as moralists, and neo-Latin sometimes served as a kind of discrete veil for the risqué. Thus for example [[Benjamin Loveling]] authored a catalogue of Drury Lane and Covent Garden prostitutes, in Sapphic stanzas, and an encomium for a dying lady "of salacious memory".[B. Loveling, ''Latin and English Poems'', 49–52, 79–83] Some Latin imitations of Horace were politically subversive, such as a marriage ode by [[Anthony Alsop]] that included a rallying cry for the [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] cause. On the other hand, [[Andrew Marvell]] took inspiration from Horace's ''Odes'' 1.37 to compose his English masterpiece [[Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland]], in which subtly nuanced reflections on the execution of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] echo Horace's ambiguous response to the death of [[Cleopatra]] (Marvell's ode was suppressed in spite of its subtlety and only began to be widely published in 1776). [[Samuel Johnson]] took particular pleasure in reading ''The Odes''.[Cfr. [[James Boswell]], "The Life of [[Samuel Johnson]]" ''Aetat.'' 20, 1729 where Boswell remarked of Johnson that Horace's ''Odes'' "were the compositions in which he took most delight."] [[Alexander Pope]] wrote direct ''Imitations'' of Horace (published with the original Latin alongside) and also echoed him in ''Essays'' and [[The Rape of the Lock]]. He even emerged as "a quite Horatian Homer" in his translation of the ''[[Iliad]]''.[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 329–31] Horace appealed also to female poets, such as [[Anna Seward]] (''Original sonnets on various subjects, and odes paraphrased from Horace'', 1799) and [[Elizabeth Tollet]], who composed a Latin ode in Sapphic meter to celebrate her brother's return from overseas, with tea and coffee substituted for the wine of Horace's [[symposium|sympotic]] settings:
{{verse translation|lang=la
|
Quos procax nobis numeros, jocosque
Musa dictaret? mihi dum tibique
Temperent baccis Arabes, vel herbis
Pocula Seres[E. Tollet, ''Poems on Several Occasions'', 84]
|
What verses and jokes might the bold
Muse dictate? while for you and me
Arabs flavour our cups with beans
Or Chinese with leaves.[Translation adapted from D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 329]
}}
Horace's ''Ars Poetica'' is second only to Aristotle's ''Poetics'' in its influence on literary theory and criticism. Milton recommended both works in his treatise ''of Education''.[A. Gilbert, ''Literary Criticism: Plato to Dryden'', 124, 669] Horace's ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' however also had a huge impact, influencing theorists and critics such as [[John Dryden]].[W. Kupersmith, ''Roman Satirists in Seventeenth Century England'', 97–101] There was considerable debate over the value of different lyrical forms for contemporary poets, as represented on one hand by the kind of four-line stanzas made familiar by Horace's Sapphic and Alcaic ''Odes'' and, on the other, the loosely structured [[Pindarics]] associated with the odes of [[Pindar]]. Translations occasionally involved scholars in the dilemmas of censorship. Thus [[Christopher Smart]] entirely omitted ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen X|4.10]] and re-numbered the remaining odes. He also removed the ending of ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen I|4.1]]. [[Thomas Creech]] printed ''Epodes'' [[:wikisource:la:Epodi#VIII|8]] and [[:wikisource:la:Epodi#XII|12]] in the original Latin but left out their English translations. [[Philip Francis (translator)|Philip Francis]] left out both the English and Latin for those same two epodes, a gap in the numbering the only indication that something was amiss. French editions of Horace were influential in England and these too were regularly [[bowdlerize]]d.
Most European nations had their own 'Horaces': thus for example [[Friedrich von Hagedorn]] was called ''The German Horace'' and [[Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski]] ''The Polish Horace'' (the latter was much imitated by English poets such as [[Henry Vaughan]] and [[Abraham Cowley]]). Pope [[Urban VIII]] wrote voluminously in Horatian meters, including an ode on gout.[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 319–25]
===19th century on===
Horace maintained a central role in the education of English-speaking elites right up until the 1960s.[S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 340] A pedantic emphasis on the formal aspects of language-learning at the expense of literary appreciation may have made him unpopular in some quarters[V. Kiernan, ''Horace: Poetics and Politics'', x] yet it also confirmed his influence{{emdash}}a tension in his reception that underlies [[Lord Byron|Byron]]'s famous lines from ''[[Childe Harold's Pilgrimage|Childe Harold]]'' (Canto iv, 77):[S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 334]
{{poemquote|
Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse.
}}
[[William Wordsworth]]'s mature poetry, including the [[Preface to the Lyrical Ballads|preface]] to ''[[Lyrical Ballads]]'', reveals Horace's influence in its rejection of false ornament[D. Money, ''The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', 323] and he once expressed "a wish / to meet the shade of Horace...".[The quote, from ''Memorials of a Tour of Italy'' (1837), contains allusions to ''Odes'' 3.4 and 3.13 (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 334–35)] [[John Keats]] echoed the opening of Horace's ''Epodes'' 14 in the opening lines of ''[[Ode to a Nightingale]]''.["''My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / my sense...''" echoes Epodes [[:wikisource:la:Epodi#XIV|14.1–4]] (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 335)]
The Roman poet was presented in the nineteenth century as an honorary English gentleman. [[William Makepeace Thackeray|William Thackeray]] produced a version of ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber I/Carmen XXXVIII|1.38]] in which Horace's 'boy' became 'Lucy', and [[Gerard Manley Hopkins]] translated the boy innocently as 'child'. Horace was translated by [[Sir Theodore Martin]] (biographer of [[Albert, Prince Consort|Prince Albert]]) but minus some ungentlemanly verses, such as the erotic ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber I/Carmen XXV|1.25]] and ''Epodes'' 8 and 12. [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton]] produced a popular translation and [[William Gladstone]] also wrote translations during his last days as Prime Minister.[S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 335–37]
[[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]'s ''[[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]]'', though formally derived from the Persian ''[[ruba'i]]'', nevertheless shows a strong Horatian influence, since, as one modern scholar has observed, "''...the quatrains inevitably recall the stanzas of the 'Odes', as does the narrating first person of the world-weary, ageing [[Epicurus|Epicurean]] Omar himself, mixing [[Symposium|sympotic]] exhortation and 'carpe diem' with splendid moralising and 'memento mori' [[nihilism]].''"[Comment by S. Harrison, editor and contributor to ''The Cambridge Companion to Horace'' (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 337] [[Matthew Arnold]] advised a friend in verse not to worry about politics, an echo of ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber II/Carmen XI|2.11]], yet later became a critic of Horace's inadequacies relative to Greek poets, as role models of [[Victorian Age|Victorian]] virtues, observing: "''If human life were complete without faith, without enthusiasm, without energy, Horace...would be the perfect interpreter of human life.''"[M. Arnold, ''Selected Prose'', 74] [[Christina Rossetti]] composed a sonnet depicting a woman willing her own death steadily, drawing on Horace's depiction of 'Glycera' in ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber I/Carmen XIX|1.19.5–6]] and Cleopatra in ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber I/Carmen XXXVII|1.37]].[Rossetti's sonnet, ''A Study (a soul)'', dated 1854, was not published in her own lifetime. Some lines: ''She stands as pale as Parian marble stands / Like Cleopatra when she turns at bay...'' (C. Rossetti, ''Complete Poems'', 758] [[A. E. Housman]] considered ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen VII|4.7]], in [[Prosody (Latin)#First Archilochian|Archilochian]] couplets, the most beautiful poem of antiquity[W. Flesch, ''Companion to British Poetry, 19th Century'', 98] and yet he generally shared Horace's penchant for quatrains, being readily adapted to his own elegiac and melancholy strain.[S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 339] The most famous poem of [[Ernest Dowson]] took its title and its heroine's name from a line of ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber IV/Carmen I|4.1]], ''Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae'', as well as its motif of nostalgia for a former flame. [[Kipling]] wrote a famous [[parody]] of the ''Odes'', satirising their stylistic idiosyncrasies and especially the extraordinary syntax, but he also used Horace's Roman patriotism as a focus for British imperialism, as in the story ''Regulus'' in the school collection ''[[Stalky & Co.]]'', which he based on ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber III/Carmen V|3.5]].[S. Medcalfe, ''Kipling's Horace'', 217–39] Wilfred Owen's famous poem, quoted above, incorporated Horatian text to question patriotism while ignoring the rules of Latin scansion. However, there were few other echoes of Horace in the war period, possibly because war is not actually a major theme of Horace's work.[S. Harrison, ''the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 340]
[[File:Michelin Poster 1898.jpg|thumb|[[Bibendum]] (the symbol of the [[Michelin]] tyre company) takes his name from the opening line of [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber I/Carmen XXXVII|Ode 1.37]], ''[[Nunc est bibendum]]''.]]
Both [[W.H.Auden]] and [[Louis MacNeice]] began their careers as teachers of classics and both responded as poets to Horace's influence. Auden for example evoked the fragile world of the 1930s in terms echoing ''Odes'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber II/Carmen XI|2.11.1–4]], where Horace advises a friend not to let worries about frontier wars interfere with current pleasures.
{{poemquote|
And, gentle, do not care to know
Where Poland draws her Eastern bow,
What violence is done;
Nor ask what doubtful act allows
Our freedom in this English house,
Our picnics in the sun.[Quoted from Auden's poem ''Out on the lawn I lie in bed'', 1933, and cited by S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 340]
}}
The American poet, [[Robert Frost]], echoed Horace's ''Satires'' in the conversational and sententious idiom of some of his longer poems, such as ''The Lesson for Today'' (1941), and also in his gentle advocacy of life on the farm, as in ''Hyla Brook'' (1916), evoking Horace's ''fons Bandusiae'' in ''Ode'' [[:wikisource:la:Carmina (Horatius)/Liber III/Carmen XIII|3.13]]. Now at the start of the third millennium, poets are still absorbing and re-configuring the Horatian influence, sometimes in translation (such as a 2002 English/American edition of the ''Odes'' by thirty-six poets)[Edited by McClatchy, reviewed by S. Harrison, ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' 2003.03.05] and sometimes as inspiration for their own work (such as a 2003 collection of odes by a New Zealand poet).[I. Wedde, ''The Commonplace Odes'', Auckland 2003, (cited by S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 345)]
Horace's ''Epodes'' have largely been ignored in the modern era, excepting those with political associations of historical significance. The obscene qualities of some of the poems have repulsed even scholars['Political' Epodes are 1, 7, 9, 16; notably obscene Epodes are 8 and 12. E. Fraenkel is among the admirers repulsed by these two poems, for another view of which see for example Dee Lesser Clayman, 'Horace's Epodes VIII and XII: More than Clever Obscenity?', ''The Classical World'' Vol. 6, No. 1 (September 1975), pp 55–61 {{JSTOR|4348329}}] yet more recently a better understanding of the nature of [[Iambus (genre)|Iambic poetry]] has led to a re-evaluation of the ''whole'' collection.[D. Mankin, ''Horace: Epodes'', 6–9][R. McNeill, ''Horace'', 12] A re-appraisal of the ''Epodes'' also appears in creative adaptations by recent poets (such as a 2004 collection of poems that relocates the ancient context to a 1950s industrial town).[M. Almond, ''The Works'' 2004, Washington, cited by S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 346]
Return to Horace.
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