Horace His Lyric Poetry

In this volume, first published in 1945, Mr Wilkinson writes primarily for students of the classics who are not Horatian specialists. His book falls easily within the scope of those who can read any Latin at all - and even of those who cannot, for most passages quoted are also translated. Horace - for Mr Wilkinson - is the poet of the Odes and the Epodes - the incomparable genius of the lyric form, and a sympathetic and engaging character into the bargain. He is especially concerned with Horace as the poetic craftsman. Like most Roman poets, Horace was not inventive in subject-matter: he generally wrote about what we now recognize as the eternal platitudes. But Mr Wilkinson focuses on the mastery of form, rhythm and cadence that have charmed readers for centuries.

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This wide-ranging selection showcases the work of one of ancient Rome’s master poets—and originator of the phrase “carpe diem”—whose influence on poetry can be traced through the centuries into our own time. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, who lived from 65 to 8 BCE, saw the death of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire and was personally acquainted with the emperor Augustus and the poet Virgil. He was famous during his lifetime and since for his odes and epodes, for his satires and epistles, and for Ars Poetica. His lyric poems, brief and allusive, have been translated into English by a range of famous poets, including Milton, Ben Jonson, John Dryden, William Cowper, A. E. Housman, Ezra Pound, Louis MacNeice, Robert Lowell—and even Queen Elizabeth I and the Victorian prime minister William Gladstone. Horace’s masterly verses have inspired poets from antiquity to modernity, and his injunction to “seize the day” has echoed through the ages. This anthology of superb English translations shows how Horace has permeated English literature for five centuries.