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Horace's Criticism of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

In the opening satire of his second book Horace makes a spirited reply to his contemporary critics. It is such an excellent example of his sprightly wit that I cannot do better than make use of a summary of this satire as the introduction to my paper. His published writings up to this date (29 b.c.) were the Epodes and the first book of the Satires, his earliest efforts, many of them composed in the grimmer period of his life when the poet had reason for depression, disillusionment, and anxiety, and before he had attained that philosophic calm which gives to the works of his maturity a mellow quality, dear to many subsequent generations of cultivated readers in all countries.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1938

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References

page 103 note 1 Cf. Burns, ‘The incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods’. Horace is like his native stream, usually placid, but when strongly moved the ‘roar of headlong tumbling floods’ can be heard in his verse.

page 106 note 1 Vide Professor R. M. Henry's presidential address to the annual meeting of the Classical Association (May 1937): ‘Horace was invited to assist the cause, and the genial Epicurean laid aside the themes on which he was more happily employed to write the six splendid odes of his third book.’