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The Poet's Defence (I)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
In A.J.P. lxxvi 1955 I attempted to show that, contrary to the theory of Professor Hendrickson, Horace's fourth satire is what it purports to be, namely a defence against hostile criticism. The aim of the two present articles is to examine how that defence is handled.
The poet had, it seems, to contend with two main charges, one relating to spirit and the other to form. The first said in effect ‘Your work reveals a malicious nature’; the second ‘Your verses are meagre and prosaic’. Let us take these charges separately. In reply to the former Horace answers:
1. ‘The writers of Old Comedy and Lucilius branded criminals’ (1–7). As I hope to show later, Horace is not finding fault with their practice; on the contrary he is by implication claiming the same right for himself.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1955
References
page 142 note 1 ‘Horace Serm. 1. 4; A Protest and a Programme’, A.J.P. xxi (1900).Google Scholar
page 142 note 2 Ovid (Tristia 2. 515–16) and Martial (Pref. to Bk. 1 and Bk. 8) justify their coarseness by appealing to the example of the Mime.
page 142 note 3 This seems to be the correct inference from habeat in 71. The word should be given a sense which (a) would have reassured Horace's interlocutor, (b) is consistent with nemo … legal in 22–23, (c) leads up to the vigorous contempt of 72, (d) provides a natural apodosis to ut sis tu in 69. These requirements are best satisfied by taking habeat as a Potential Subjunctive. I hope to develop these arguments in a forthcoming number of Hermathena.
page 143 note 1 An example of this mistake is seen in Fairclough, Loeb Translation, p. 47: ‘In his reply, Horace maintains that his own Satire is not personal but rather social and general in its application. He does not indulge in the invective of Old Comedy, but rather follows the New in spirit as well as in style.’
page 144 note 1 Serm. 1. 10. 17–19, 36–37, 78–80, 90–93.2 Horace emphasizes that this tradition in its turn owes much to the Greeks. As Fiske says, he wants to show that Satire ‘has honorable literary antecedents, both in Greek rhetorical theory and in Greek satiric literature’ (Lucilius and Horace, p. 277).
page 144 note 3 See, e.g., Nettleship, , The Original Form of Roman Satura (Oxford, 1878), p.12Google Scholar: ‘Horace complains that Lucilius is entirely the child of the Old Comedy’. Rand, E. K., Horace and the Spirit of Comedy (Rice Inst. Pamph. 24, 1937), p. 64Google Scholar. Horace takes Lucilius to task because ‘he flung too much abuse about in the fashion of the writers of Old Greek Comedy’. Grant, M., Roman Literature (Cambridge, 1954), pp. 219–20Google Scholar: ‘Horace was prejudiced in his attitude to his predecessor as is shown by his comment that Lucilius was a mere imitator of Aristophanes and the classical Attic Old Comedy of the fifth century B.C’ See also Fiske, , op. cit., p. 336.Google Scholar
page 145 note 1 Ullman, B. L., in T.A.P.A. xlviii (1917).Google Scholar
page 145 note 2 Op. cit., p. 127.Google Scholar
page 145 note 3 See Fiske, , op. cit., p. 291Google Scholar: ‘Horace here directly disavows the role which Lucilius … deliberately assumed in Bk. 30.’ Cf. Hen-drickson, , op. cit., p. 131.Google Scholar
page 146 note 1 If libellis (66) = indictments, then a difference of tone is implied by the pun libellos (71) = books. But since there is only an implication and nothing like a direct statement, we should regard the pun as a smiling euphemism of the kind noted in category 7 above. It may well be, however, that Caprius and Sulcius are not accusers but satirists, and that libellis = books, in which case there will be no pun at all. See Ullman, , op. cit., pp. 117–19Google Scholar, and Campbell, A. Y., Horace. A New Interpretation, p. 162.Google Scholar
page 146 note 2 Frank, , A.J.P. xlvi (1925), 72–74Google Scholar. Fair-clough, Loeb, pp. 56 and 120, follows Frank in identifying hic (go) with Lucilius. A similar theory is advanced by Wagenvoort, in Donum Natalicium Schrijnen (Nijmegen, 1929), pp. 747 ffGoogle Scholar. The Dutch scholar, though acknowledging Hendrickson's theory of the relation between the fourth and tenth satires, does not mention Frank's article, and so his conclusion on this point must be regarded as independent.
page 147 note 1 Fiske, , op. cit., p. 409Google Scholar
page 148 note 1 Hendrickson, , Studies presented to Basil Gildersleeve (1902), p. 151.Google Scholar
page 148 note 1 Knapp, , A.J.P. xxxiii (1912), 143Google Scholar: ‘In Serm. 1. 10 the situation is different. Some time has elapsed since the publication of 1. 4; in that time Horace's position, social and literary, has become far more secure, and he is at liberty to set forth his real convictions.’ In fact, Horace becomes more, not less circumspect with the passage of time. The differences between the two satires arise from a difference of aim. In the fourth Horace is using Lucilius in his own defence, in the tenth he states his own relationship to him.
page 148 note 3 It is worth noting that Persius (1. 123–5) cites the example of Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes in order to vindicate his own satires. This makes it virtually certain that he interpreted Serm. 1.4. 1–8 in the manner recommended above.
page 148 note 4 This conclusion is therefore the opposite of Fiske's: ‘In fact Horace's fourth satire may be regarded as an aesthetic and ethical analysis of the Lucilian theory of satire; a criticism, however, presented under the guise of an attack upon those contemporaries who believed in a direct revival of Lucilian invective presented in the traditional Lucilian form of improvisation’ (op. cit., pp. 278–9).Google Scholar