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Week 20: Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace), (65 - 8 B.C.)
For this week, please read:
- A selection of poems by the poet Horace in a variety of translations.
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be concentrating on a fairly small set of poems by Horace, in a variety of translations — some classic, some hitherto unpublished.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 (Maecenas, a close confederate and client of Augustus). 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:
Pay particular attention to (and be ready to discuss):
- Epodes 7
- Odes I.3
- Odes I.5
- Odes II.13
- Odes III.30
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