Western Literature to Dante

Bruce A. McMenomy, Ph.D. for Scholars Online
2009-10: Mondays, 1:00 p.m.- 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time
2009

August

31 

September

14  21  28 

October

5  12  19  26 

November

2  9  16  23  30 

December

7  14 

2010

January

4  11  18  25 

February

1  8  15  22 

March

1  8  15  22 

April

5  12  19  26 

May

3  10  17  24 

Unit VI: Augustan Rome 44 B.C. - A.D. 14

Week 20: Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace), 65 - 8 B.C.

For this week, please read the selections linked below from the Roman poet Horace.

This week, I am giving you a light reading load while you finish your midterm exams. We will be concentrating on a fairly small set of poems Horace, in a variety of translations — some classic, some hitherto unpublished.

Horace was a friend of the poet Vergil, and they shared the same patron. His work was more modest in several ways, but it is carefully written, and has spoken clearly to virtually every generation since Horace’s day. Read all the poems at least once; read (as you prefer) the alternative translations (sometimes paraphrases) by the earlier poets; and concentrate on a few for discussion in class. I have marked several of these out with particular comments about the structure and disposition of the original: