The Satires of Horace and Persius

Both works have had a powerful influence on later Western literature, inspiring poets from Ben Jonson and Alexander Pope to W. H. Auden and Robert Frost.

Horace (65 BC-8 BC), or Quintus Horatius Flaccus, was a Roman lyric poet, satirist, and literary critic. He is generally considered one of the greatest lyric poets of the world. Aules Persius Flaccus was born in AD 34 in Etruria. Rich and well connected, he knew Lucan, Thrasea Paetus, and other members of the opposition to Nero's rule. His friendship with the philosopher Cornutus began when he was sixteen and remained a strong influence until his death at the age of twenty-seven. Although the satires are concerned with moral questions- a fact which endeared Persius to the Church Fathers and won him admiration in the Middle Ages and Renaissance- their main interest for us lies in their condensed, allusive, and highly metaphorical style.

The Satires of Horace (65-8 BC), written in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of Augustus' regime, provide an amusing treatment of men's perennial enslavement to money, power, glory and sex. Epistles I, addressed to the poet's friends, deals with the problem of achieving contentment amid the complexities of urban life, while Epistles II and the Ars Poetica discuss Latin poetry - its history and social functions, and the craft required for its success. Both works have had a powerful influence on later Western literature, inspiring poets from Ben Jonson and Alexander Pope to W. H. Auden and Robert Frost. The Satires of Persius (AD 34-62) are highly idiosyncratic, containing a courageous attack on the poetry and morals of his wealthy contemporaries - even the ruling emperor, Nero.

Horace

Betty Radice

W. Shepherd

Horace (65-8 bc) was one of the greatest poets of the Golden or Augustan age of Latin literature, a master of precision and irony who brilliantly transformed early Greek iambic and lyric poetry into sophisticated Latin verse of outstanding beauty. Offering allusive and exquisitely crafted insights into the brief joys of the present and the uncertain nature of the future, his Odes and Epodes explore such diverse themes as the virtues of pastoral life, the joys of wine, friendship and love, and the poet's personal anguish following Brutus' defeat at the battle of Phillipi. Ranging from subtle and tender hymns to the gods to bawdy celebrations of human passions, they remain among the most influential of all poems, inspiring poets from the Roman era to the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment and beyond.

Horace

Books by Horace

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