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Loyola University Chicago

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Master's Teses Teses and Dissertations

1947

Horace's Picture of a PoetHenry St. C. Lavin Loyola University Chicago

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Henry St. c. Lavin, S.J . was born in Richmond, Virginia,

January 4, 1921.

He was graduated rrom s t . Peter•s Preparatory School, Jersey

City, New Jersey, June, 1938.

He attended Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., ror

two years, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major

in Classical Languages, from Loyola University, June, 1944.

From 1945 to 1948, the writer has been engaged in teaching

Classics and English a t St. Joseph's College High School, Phila-

delphia, Pennsylvania.



i ilearn canons of taste and technique to improve their work.

Realizing th is , the men of a l l periods and a l l styles , Classical

and Romantic, Medieval and Modern, have writ ten and commented

copiously on the l i terary principles of Horace. To Boileau and

the French Classical school Rorace was guide and mentor. But

they saw in him only their own image and l ikeness, removing a l l

the subtle nuance of s tyle and matter and leaving only the bones

of form. Form they sought and found in the Odes, and l i t t l e

more. In their eagerness for rules , they forgot that poetry is

written, not by angels or machines, but by men. They forgot that

the writing of true poetry is an ar t , not a mere knowledge of

techniques. Yet, not the Classicis ts alone have lover and appre-

ciated Horace. The Lake poets in England, and the Laureate,

Tennyson, r ing with the imagery and the music of Horace's alcaics

and sapphicsl. Even Byron, who admitted disl iking Horace, wrote

a paraphrase of the Ars Poetica which shows that of his school

training in Horace much remained. And on most of those he meats

in the class room, Horace makes an impression, both as a poet

and as a man, which seams to grow stronger with the passing of

years. Horace's influence lends interest to a study of his pre-

cepts concerning poetry. When he s ~ e a k s of limae labor2, we

note i t down and quota i t and try to apply i t . Vfuen we read a l l ·

the famous rules for composition drawn from Horace, we nod our

1 H. Popkin, "Horace and the English Romantic Writers", Nuntius,7, 1943, 81.

2 Q. Horatius Flaccus, Opera, ad. by E. c. Wickham, Clarendon

Press, Oxford, Ars Poatica, 291.



i i i

our heads and agree. These rules have been discussed and eluci-

dated and contradicted thoroughly. But there is yet something

wanting. For poetry is written by the poets and the most impor

tant equipment a man can have for the writing of good or great

poetry is a character and temperament that f i t him for the voca

t ion of poet. When this is ascertained, there is time to en

quire as to the instruments he is to use in showing to the world

the poetry that is inside him. The picture of a poet, then,

wil l show us a vision of poetry going deeper than the surface

interplay of simile and metaphor to some of the character is t ics

which underlie these. For i f the externals are learned by rote ,

they wil l be l ike ornaments on a Christmas t ree , gleaming and

lovely perhaps, but not as native or as reassuringly natural as

a simple pine cone. The man and the poet are not two diverse

or host i le people. one makes the other what he is , one in

fluences the other, one is the other. A glance through the

gallery of great poets i l lus t ra tes th is . Catullus could write

passionate love poetry and coarse invective because his tem

perament was passionate, and, when frustrated, his love turned

to terr ible scorn. Virgi l ' s whole l i fe of seclusion and dreams

f i t ted him to dream the wonderful dream called the Aeneid. And

our Horace himself could write verse of so many kinds, in so

many moods, because the wil l ful and changing fortunes of his

l i fe made his moods thus.



iv

So i t is the man's sel f that matters, when he comes to

write. And in this thesis i t is the man's sel f that interests

us, his ideas, dreams and ideals. For, as Cicero drew the pic-

ture of the orator which was a kind of Platonic idea of the ab-

solute orator, so in the works of Horace, we wil l find deline-

ated many of the t ra i ts and qualit ies necessary for the poet.

Then whether or not we accept Horace's ideal, at least i t will

provide us with a clue to the l i fe and work of Horace himself

and of many who have followed him.



CHAPTER I

THE VOCATION OF A POET

Horace f e l t that the poet is a chosen soul, dedicated to

Apollo1 who is to be his patron and his inspirat ion. To him

there is pertinence in the mention of Orpheus whose miraculous

powers tamed l ions and t igers , and of Amphion who bui l t the

walls of Thebes with song.2 For every poet shares in some poor

way the miraculous charm of these two. Every poet at least

calms the unruly heart and builds the fragi le walls of dreams

by his song.

In this Horace does not differ from the other cr i t ics and

thinkers of ancient times: a l l of them held that without in-

spirat ion there is no poetry. A fear of the unset t l ing inf lu-

ence of inspirat ion was Plato• s reason for excluding poe.ts from

his c o ~ ~ o n w e a l t h . 3

Far from explaining by 11 reason only" theprestige of poetry, the reproach they levela t poetic knowledge is precisely that i t is

1 Car. I , XXXI, 1.2 A.P. 391 seq.3. n:-Bremond, Prayer and Poetry, t ·ransl. A. Thorold, Burns

Oates and washbourne, London, 1927, I , 7-12.

1



not founded on reason. For them the poet quapoet having been stripped of his normal se l f ,is clothed with a divine se l f , he is entheos.They have no doubt whatever of th is ; they areequally persuaded that this inspirat ion is wisdom but they suspect and wil l have nothing to

do with a wisdom which owes nothing to laborof in te l lec t , which does not present i t s accounts, which does not come when called, whichis not conscious of i t se l f .

Thus the soul of Plato is torn between thelove, the fear and the shame of poetry.

2

Even Aris tot le , on whom the advocates of the so-called "Classi

cal" approach rely so heavily, insis ts on the role of inspirat ion

in the creation of poetry. 4He admits in the poetics5 that there

are in rea l i ty two types of poets, one in which craf t surpasses

inspiration and the other in which the "fine frenzy" predominates.

But in his mind, the greatest poets have never ent i re ly abandoned

reason.6 And i t is precisely here that we seem to find the dis-

t inct ion between the poetic theories of Aristot le ana ~ ~ a t o .He [ A r i s t o t ~ e ] approaches Poetics as a logician, and ••• he

places poetry, l ike a syllogism under the absolute yoke of

reason. 7

Plato quarrels with a r t because in his viewi t emphasizes and attaches importance to just

that sensible side of things which thoughtmust transcend, and so hinders the mind's progress from sensible to in tel l ig ible real i ty ,and also because the process by which i t reachesimmediacy are not trustworthy and are as far as

4 s. H. Butcher, Aristot le ' s Theory of Poetry and Fine Arts,MacMillan, London, 1932, 397, cf f tn t . 2 .

5 Ibid . , f tn t . 1.6 Ibid . , 397.7 Bremond, 17.



possible removed from those logical processesby which truth is attained.s

Briefly this quarrel between the emphasis on reason and the

emphasis on inspirat ion is the foundation of the t imeless strug-

gle between "Classicismtt and "Romanticism", those two much used

and much abused terms. The old saying, 'Poets are born, not

made 1 , gives us one side of this discussion. The few words we

have given on the quarrel do not elucidate the many involved

turns i t has taken in the minds and works of poets and cr i t ics .

They are given merely to serve as an introduction to a considera

t ion of Horace's views on this subject . Are poets, according to

Horace, made or born? Is poetry the resul t of inspirat ion or

rather of hard work? The answers to these questions will shed

much l ight on the character which Horace demanded of his ideal

poet .

Surely we should not be surprised to find Horace, in this

as in a l l else, taking neither the wide, nor the narrow gate, but

finding a middle way which leads him between both. After a l l ,

this middle course was nothing more than he recommended tn his

writings. And Horace's philosophy seems to be nothing more than

a projection of his own experience. When he had achieved a modus

vivendi, a truce with the strong emotions of l i f e , he offered his

solution in his poetry to whoever wanted i t .

8 A.D. Lindsay, Five Dialogues of Plato

onPoetic Inspirat ion,

Everymant:s Library, London, 1910, xv.



4

Following this philosophy of his , Horace takes a view of the

poet 1 s mission and manner which is partly Romantic and partly

Classical . As Miss Helen c. vlfuite says, "By taking thought one

may make himself a better poet, but not even the most confident

devotees of education would claim, I think, that any man may make

himself a poet." 9 This is a statement with which Horace would, I

think, agree. For although he rejects Democritus' theory which

Ingenium misera quia fortunatius arteCredit et excludit sanos Helicons poetas 10

s t i l l heoften declares

thepoets debt to

the Muses.

And for the res t , He accepts without questioning the doctrine of "poetic inspirat ion, thoughhis conception of that factor is presumably ofa somewhat vague kind. For he regards i t as amysterious force working from without on thepoet; and i t is a force to which he rendersl ip-service in his invocations to the Muses.But he is also careful to denounce the currentabuses of the doctrine as when he ridicules

a l l pretenders who claim inspirat ion by reasonfor their eccentric behavior, ~ r as a resul t

of their devotion to the cup.l

Accepting Professor Atkins' interpretation of the role of

the Muses in Horace, we find that he was very conscious of the

need for inspiration. I f we can judge by the frequency of refer-

ence, Horace, when he sat down to write , often breathed a prayer,

or at leas t an unspoken desire that the enthusiasmos of Plato

might lend f ire and bri l l iance to his own work. One of the most

charming examples of this in the Odes, occurs in I I I , iv , 1-8,

9 H. c. White, The Metaphysical Poets, Macmillan, New York,1936, 12. -

10 A.P. 295-6.11 J . w. H. Atkins, L i t e r a r ~ . C r i t i c i s m in Antiquity, The Univer-

!=d tv PttA!'t!'t r!Amh'I"HHze l ~ a : > . q , l J . ' lb ..-



where Horace says,

Desoende oaelo e t die age t ib iaregina longum Calliope melos,

seu voce nunc mavis aouta,seu fidubus oitharave Phoebi.

auditis an me ludi t amabilisinsania? audire et videor pios

errare per luoos, amoenaequos et aquae subeunt et aurae.

Here a t the s tar t of the fourth of the 'Moral Odes' we find

5

Horace calling on Calliope for inspirat ion and finding her, un-

less he be deceived, a t his side. And he continues in the same

ode saying that no place, no event is beyond his scope, i f only

the muse be with him. 12 In IV, i i i , He thanks Melpomene for the

g i f t of song, saying that i t is because of her and her g i f t that ,

Romae principia urbiumdignatur suboles inter amabilis

vatum ponere me choros.

Even when we admit that the Muses had l i t t l e or no rea l i ty

to Horace as rel igious f igures, there s t i l l remains in this ode

with i t s grateful admission that ,

Totum muneris hoc tu i es t ,quod monstror digito praeterentium

Romanae f idicen lyrae:quod spiro e t placeo, s i placeo, tuum es t . 13

an acknowledgement of the part that inspirat ion plays in the for ·

mation of a poet. Whatever Horace shal l say la ter about the

absolute necessity of hard work, le t us recal l these words which

show that before a l l hard work is required a substrate of lyr ic

i l lumination.

12 Car. I I I , iv , 21-64.13 Car. I V ~ i i i , 21-24.



6When Horace says of himself14 that he is Musarum sacerdos,

just what does he mean? From the ra t ional tone of his whole pub

l ished work, we may feel sure that he does not refer to the Musae

as bona fide divini t ies . I f this reference, then, is to mean any

thing more than a mechanical t r ick for beginning a poem, i t must

mean that Horace does feel in himself that dedication which is

implici t in I , xxxi, 1 .

Quid dedicatum posci t Apollinemvates?

But this dedication seems to be far more to the abstraction which

we cal l ' Inspirat ion ' than to any deity.

For rat ionalism and s u p e r s t i t ~ o n had, in the time of Horace,

set up their idols in the temples of the old Olympian Gods. The

flood of mystery cults and oriental r i t es brought those who could

perceive the continuity of events to a refuge in reason. Those

whose minds were not thus trained were frightened into the un-

thinking degradation of superst i t ion. Astrologers, fortune-tel l

ers and soothsayers of a l l descriptions had se t up shop a t Rome.

They grew r ich out of the insufficiency of the old t radi t ional

rel igion to satisfy the emotional longings of the people. Those

who were too wise to be duped by these imposters were yet not

wise enough to see that neither in superst i t ion nor in ra t ional

ism does the t ruth l i e . For men l ike these, for the educated,

for the philosophers, the poets, the thinkers of Rome, the mystic

was laughable, the supernatural was non-existent; there was only

14 Car. I I I , i , 4.



7reason.

The awe and reverence which their ancestors fe l t for an un-

seen power was the target of Lucretius• terrible and beautiful

attack. In his work ·Lucretius ref lected and formed the l i t e ra te)

religious opinion of his day.

On feature of the age was rest less doubt, acceptance of strange Eastern cults , and a revol t fromt radi t ional beliefs -and observances. Less thanever could augur meet augur without smiling.Caesar in the Catil inarian debate openly rejectedthe conception of a future l i f e . Cant was producing the inevitable r igct ion. The old doctr ines were dissolving.

Into this milieu Horace came, singing to the Muses and to

Apollo, the god of song. Being as he himself said, 'Parcxus

Deorum cultor e t infrequens•, we can only believe that the Muses

for Horace were the ta lent and the purely natural inspirat ion re

quired as a foundation for any poet .

In his own writing, Horace took into consideration that

much of his success was due to the mood of the moment, to the

brief grandeur of l ight which clar i f ies the in te l lec t and direct

the emotions and which we cal l inspirat ion.

In his theory on the writing of poetry, proposed in the De

Arte Poetica, Horace makes this not merely a matter of pract ice

but also a matter of precept. At the same time he shows his

emphasis on a quality which different ia tes him from the ul t ra -

romantic school. we would find him disagreeing vigorously with

15 J . w. Duff, A Literarz History o f ~ to the C l o s e ~ theGolden A e Scribner 's Sons New York 1931 280.



this trendt

For Shelly, poetry is no doubt, creation butprimarily revelat ion. Inspirat ion comes before everything. A foreign influence seizeshold of the poet, who can neither understand

nor control i t ; a divine power penetrates him,and obliges him to produce certain images ofperfection by which he t r ies to save from thegulf of nothingness which waits for them,these vis i ts of God to man. This is poetry.l6

8

For Horace, inquiring whether poetry owes i t s value to nature or.to ar t replies:

•••••• ego nee studium sine divite venanee rude quid prosi t video ingenium; al ter ius sicaltera poscit opem res e t coniurat amice.l7

Then he continues with a comparison to a runner who must s t a r t

his training while yet a lad i f he is to win. As Wickham points

out in his note on th is passage, "Horace poses the old question

. . and solves i t in the usual way, that he needs both natural

gif ts and the t raining of a r t ••••• but as the i l lustrat ions show,

the point to be insis ted on is the second."l8

To ins is t on the need for talent and to neglect hard work,

would not be to follow the mind of Horace in this matter. In

fact , i t was Aristot le 's r igidi ty and Horace's insistence on

rules which brought the mili tant neo-classicism of Boileau.l9

But we are not to blame the excesses of la ter disciples on the

161718

19

Bremond, 67.A.P. 409-411.E. c. Wickham, Horace, I I , The Satires ,

Poet1ca, Clarendon Presi ; OXford, 1903,Bremond. 18§ and Duff, 534.



9

bimself. His emphasis on hard work must certainly have been re -

quired in an age when

•••••••••• excludit sanos Helicone poetasDemocritus, bona pars non unguis ponere curat ,

non barbam, secreta pet i t loca, balnea vi ta t .nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetae,s i tr ibus Anticyris caput insanabile numquamtonsori Licino commiserit.20

This ludicrous picture of the "ar t i s t ic temperamenttt untrammeled

and gone-to-seed shows us Horace's reason for demanding that the

ideal poet have, not only talent , but energy, self-control and

the courage to work hard under crit icism.

And these, among others, are the quali t ies he demands. To

Horace the poet is no l i ly of the f ield blown by the passing

breath of inspirat ion. No, choose what workaday image you wil l ,

what figure of energy and to i l to describe the poet; and Horace

wil l agree with you •

• . . . • . • . . . • . . . . . . • . . . . . • . . • . . . . . . . • . • • . Vos, 0

Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite quod nonmulta dies et multa l i tura coercuit atque

21praesectum decies non cast igavit ad unguem.

Limae labor a t mora are necessary i f the poet is not to offend,

and even after he has written his works often, he must be con

tent , as Horace was, with a few in te l l igent raadars. 22

Ludantis speciem dabit at torquabitur •••• 23

What a true and terr ifying picture these five words give of the

20 A.P. 296-301.21 A.P. 291-294.22 ~ . I , 10, 7223 ~ I I , 2, 124.



10

poet. Wedded to an a r t which seems easy to a l l , he is on the

rack of sel f-cr i t ic ism, and of constant revision. The person

who has attempted the writing of Alcaics of Sapphics will

realize the accuracy of Horace's picture. Horace's cri t icism of

tuci l ius is only that , while he was much more careful than the

other early Latin poets, he s t i l l le f t too many blots in his

work. Yet in the heat of composition even Lucilius would often

scratch his head in perplexity, looking, apparently, for the

r ight word.24

And Horace's is the sensible at t i tude toward poetry. Noc

one claims that without training and hard work and revision men

can write symphonies or drama or epic poetry, to say nothing of

the other fine ar ts , such as architecture. Why then should the

poet, and more especially the lyric poet, claim or receive an

exemption from the universal rule . Horace claimed none himself,

and he would extend none to his ideal poet.

There are several factors beside his common-sense philo

sophy which contributed to the formation of Horace's creed of

hard work. One of these was the l i te rary environment of his

time, which was odorous with the lush growth of Alexandrinism.

To Horace, this movement was by nature repugnant, and he fe l t

obliged to do a l l in his power to counteract i t . Another of

these factors was his posi t ion a t court during the time when he

24 S e ~ . I , 10, 67-71.



llwrote a l l the works which chiefly concern us. I t seems to be

axiomatic that laureates are somewhat tamed by circumstances

into a certain formalism.

These two factors worked together. As exponents of the sub

ject ive, esoteric view of l i terature and l i fe , the Alexandrine

poets fe l l under the disapproyal of Augustus who was attempting

to build an unified Empire, not to foster individualis t ic genii .

Horace, as Augustus• spokesman, found that he was encouraged to

followhis

ownbent in condemning

theexcesses

which were

cloaked under the name of inspirat ion and in advocating the

craftman's att i tude toward l i t e ra ture .

A third factor might be sought in the legal is t ic , rhetor

ical cast of the Roman mind. As Grenier says, "The chief

faculty of the Roman people was power of assimilation.n25 The

Romans could organize, could construct, could place stone on

stone; but the stones ware quarried in Greece or Asia or else-

where. I t was the Roman triumph that she made of the world a

unity, the world of words as well as of men. She bui l t well,

but she created l i t t l e .

For her world, Rome chose material which had a usa. Her

forte was not ornamentation. "He (the Roman) did not allow

pure reason; he always held fas t to the pract ical reason.n 26

25 A· Grenier, The Roman Spir i t , Knopf, New York, 1926, 387.26 Ibid . , 398.



12

I t is this pragmatism, which Grenier so emphasizes, which led

Horace to ins i s t on the value of the work of the f i l e . He, l ike

Rome herself , "subjects the l i fe of the mind to laws which are

not of themind

••• deprives i t of i t s independence and is pre-

maturely concerned with the prac t ica l resul ts of thought. I t

looks in science (and, we might add, in ar t ) for possib i l i t i es

of act ion, and subordinates the search for the unknown to re -

spect for what exis ts .n27 Poetry, l ike everything else at Rome,

had work to do. I t had pract ical resul ts to obtain. And so,

along with a l l the other useful ar t s , i t had to have rules .

These Horace gave i t .

Because of this pract ical function of poetry, the Roman

and the Horatian view of the end of poetry differs radically

from other views on th is same subject . One modern author says

that the end of poetry is the perception which is "Joyous

possessiontt28. Quiller-Couch t e l l s us that "poetry 's chief

function is to reconcile the inner harmony of man (his soul, as

we ca l l i t ) with the outer conception of the universett29 And

Coleridge would seem to speak most clearly for the moderns when

he says, "A poem is that species of composition which is opposed

to works of science, by proposing for i t s immediate object

pleasure, not trut:p,u30.

27 Ibid. , 397.28 H. McCarron, S.J . , Realizat ion, Shead and Ward, New York,

1937, 42.29 A. Quiller-Cou.ch, Poetry, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1914, 25.

30 Smithberger and McCole, On Poetry, Doubleday Doran, New York,1930, 161.



13

In theory, Horace does not aeem to differ too widely from

these def ini t ions , for he says, s ic animis natum inventumque

Eoema iuvandis31 • This would seem a t f i r s t glance to se t the

essent ia l perfect ion of poetry as pleasure, and not mere bodily

pleasure, not merely the sensuous delight of rhythm and cadence,

but the pleasure of the soul . I f we were to believe that this

quotation represented the entire opinion of Horace on the matter

of the end of poetry, we should be tempted to believe him a

Romanticist. And, indeed, some of his own odes seem designed

for no other purpose than the pleasure of the soul . For

instance, the Pyrrha ode32, the Fons Bandusiae33, the P o s c i m u r 3 ~and in general the love odes and several of the odes of fr iend-

ship do give th is pleasure and seem to have no end but th i s .

But the majority of the odes and a l l the sa t i res and

epis t les conform much more to that other dictum of Horace, Omne

t u l i t punctum qui muscuit ut i le dulci35. Seldom do we find

Horace writing without some didactic purpose. The Utile is a

major par t of his work. I t is not enough that a poem be beauti-

ful , i t must be also sweet or persuasive, he te l l s us36. No,

for Horace, beauty is not enough. We find l i t t l e of the ecstasy

of pure poetry in Horace and l i t t l e desire to achieve i t . He is

31 A.P. 377.32 car . I , v.33 Car. I , xx.34 Car. I , xxxii .35 A.P. 343.

36 A.P. 99.



By a tendency which was natural in Rome andwas s t ~ e n g t h e n e d by the trend of ideas in theage of Augustus, the p o e t ~ y of P r o p e ~ t i u sassumes a moral purpose; i t subordinatesbeauty to use.42

15

This subordination of beauty to use was the correct statement of

the end of poetry. I ts purpose was to mirrow forth the aspira

tions of the Roman people and the Roman emperor for a new golden

age; but this golden age was concerned, not with abstract and

absolute values but with concrete, relat ive values. I f the

Roman sp i r i t at this time was concerned with finding a compro-

mise with l i fe , surely the poetry of Horace was the poetry of

Rome.

This useful purpose of poetry was one which Horace made his

own and because of i t , he assigned greater importance to hard

work ratherthan

to inspiration. Of his ideal poethe asked

awillingness to advance the pract ical good of the reader through

poetry; and a capacity for hard work so that the rules , so nec

essary for a predictable finished product, might be observed.

Truly the vocation of a poet was to be a hard-working

teacher, dis t i l l ing from the beauty around him lessons for the

edificat ion of the reader and ultimately for the glory of

Rome.

42 Grenier, 277.



ve the enert;;y or the · ~ l o t i vc_d:;.:..::m to \orork

rl;·_T>rl_ !:<t + - ' , - . ( ~ ','·rit-tng O'J..+' D,oetry. 'f lr ' 't t h .._, '- ·· - ..... v '- · ..r.. _ 1'11Ciny ! 1 ~ 1 . g !'1 C c• C SO'T! '21:. 'l.lng of

the "divinat ion of the sr: . ir i tual in thf: th ings of s:=mse" which

a r i ta in Y'lentionsl, somet !-ling of the 11P Erce;1tion of sDir tua.l

r:-orreslJondence"2 which Lionel Brohnson ca l l s the essence of

poetry. 3 Yet, i s th is enough to make a poet? Is it enough

th.::.t before the slow sho.do:vdng forth of green on a ~ - · i l l o w t ree

a '''.<::n feels ar.e C:tnd wonder? Is i t enough i f in the tJresence of

beauty ma.n fee ls the symptoms Vihich Houseman describes ," ••• my

skin br i s t l e s so tha t the razor ceases to &ct. This part icular

symptom i s a c c o m ~ > a n i e d by a shiver dovm the S.fJine; there i s

another 'Nhich consis ts in a constricti : :m of the throa.t and a

precipi ta t ion of weter to the eyes"?4

Horace certainly did not think so . In nd(1iti:.:m to the per -

ception of beauty, Horace would demand ot'"er aual i f ica t ions . To

----------------1 J • Uari ta in , Jll:.1! ~ Sc 1·wL'.sticism, Scri0nePs, N ~ w York, 1ri21,

96.' .~ L. Jolmson, Post Liminiurr:, !ffacmillan London, 1911, 88.3 Ib id . , passim.4 A. E. Houseman, The Nam.§ and Nature Qf P o ( ~ t ; : ; i , Macmillc:.n,

New York, 1933, 46.

:16



17

see as a whole the picture of a poet which Horace draws, we must

see the poet t ranslat ing the beauty which he feels , the exper

ience which has st ir red him, into language which will affect

others.

The f i r s t in importance of these qualif icat ions is wisdom.

Horace devotes a long passage in the Ars Poetica to this point:

Scribendi recta sapere est et principium et fons:ram t ib i Socraticaa potarunt ostandera chartae,varbaqua provisam ram non invita sequentur.qui didic i t patriae quid debeat et quid amicis,quo s i t amora parens, quo fratar amandus at hospes,quod s i t conscript i , quod iudicis officium, quaepartes in bellum missi ducis, 1lla profactoreddare personae sci t convenientia cuiqua.respicere exemplar vitae morumqua iubebodoctum imitatorem e t vivas hinc ducere, voces.

Evidently when th is was written Horace had reconciled poetry and

philosophy. Earl ier he had said:

nunc 1taque at versus at cetera ludicra pono;quid verum atque decens, curo et rogo et omnisin hoc sum;

condo e t compono quae mox depromere possim.6

He had put aside verse to study philosophy only to discover that

philosophy formed the best preparation for writ ing. We have

seen Horace re ject the idea of Democritus that a poet should be

insane. Now he asks more than that . He asks that the poet,

l ike Tennyson's Ulysses, become 1a part of a l l that he had

known', a font of wisdom at which lesser men can drink.

From the Socraticae chartae, and, especial ly we may con-

5 A.P., 309-318.6 Epp. I, i , 10-12.



18

jure, from the works of Plato, the poet is to garner the subject

matter for his effor ts . He need not worry about w o ~ d s i f only

he has a f i t t ing subject . Then Horace enumerates the things

which the poet should know, concretely and almost prosaically.

we have diff icul ty seeing how knowledge of the duties of a

general sent into war can help make a poet wise. Horace seems

merely to be asking that his poet have a fund of universal

knowledge; and to care nothing for wisdom as we understand i t .

For in our sense wisdom is not opposed to ignorance, but to

mental blindness.

We can define wisdom as the perception of things or events

in their temporal, social , rel igious, inte l lectual and personal

context and in their re la t ion to the to ta l i ty of things.

This is a great deal to ask of any man. And the question

immediately arises , Is Horace asking this or anything l ike i t?

Not precisely this perhaps, but i t does seem that when he te l l s

the poet to gaze a t the model of l i fe and i t s manners (and what

a lo t of understanding is implied in the word mores), he is aim

ing a t something l ike true wisdom. From Plato the poet can

learn the theory of l i f e , the ontological substrate and the

p r i n c i p ~ e s which govern act ion. From l i fe he can learn what

principles and truths mean in pract ise . Thus he can perform

what Quiller-couch cal.ls "Poetry's Chief Function", 1 .e . "to

reconcile the inner harmony of man (his soul, as we cal l i t )



9

with the outer conception of the universe". 7

This is not an easy ideal . The Muse gave the Greeks an

in i t ia l interes t in ar t . The Roman must turn his interes t from

sums and account i f his verses are to he worthy to be preserved

in the polished wood of the cypress.8 The Roman must work hard

i f he is to become wise. Yet this is the very advice Horace

gives him, for the beginning and font of a l l poetry is wisdom.

With Horace, i f we can judge by his own works, much of this

wisdom was to be expressed in what we know as didacticism. I t

was to aid the function of poetry which he emphasized so much -

the prodesse. As we have seen, few of the modern cr i t ics or

poets would admit this formal teaching to be a part of poetry;

but in so far as "a poem in the f i r s t place should offer us new

perceptions, not only of the exterior universe, but of human ex

perience as well; i t should add, in other words, to what we have

already seen",9 there is no poem which does not teach.

For this t ransference of experience, whether i t be in pre-

capt or in concept, wisdom, the wisdom which Horace asks, is

necessary above a l l . Except for tel l ing the poet to watch l i fe

and use i t and i t s customs as his model, Horace gives l i t t l e

advice on how to at ta in this w i ~ d o m . True, he te l l s us that

from the I l iad we can learn much of l i f e , quid virtus e t quid

7 Chap. I . , 9.8 A.P. 323-332.9 y:-winters , Primitivism and Decadence, Arrow Editions, New

York, 1937, 1.



20

~ a p i e n t i a possi t .10

But for the res t , we have l i fe i t se l f for

our teacher. Horace himself learned what he knew of wisdom from

this source.

In the maturity of his powers, he looks backon his past experience as a process of educat ion; while he is ever striving to realize tohis own mind how he stands in the present,and in what sp i r i t he is prepared to meet thechance and the cer taint ies of the fu ture . l l

I t is because of this wisdom that Horace's own appeal has been

las t ing.

• •• to those who seek in the study of greatpoets to gain some temporary admission withinthe circle of some of the bet ter thoughts, thefiner fancies, the happier and more patheticexperiences of our race, he i s able to affordthis access. To each successive age or century,he seems to express i t s own familiar wisdomand experience ••• to each individual as afamiliar fr iend.l2

Fundamental then, in the make-up of Horace's ideal poet, is

this quali ty, this habit of wisdom.

Along with this goes another qualif icat ion without which a

man can hope to be no more than a vers i f ier . And that is a

divine discontent, a r ig id self -cr i t ic ism, and dissat isfact ion

with anything which is not the very best . In other things,

Horace te l l s the young Pisones, a man who is jus t moderately

good has a fa i r chance of success but:

1011

12

~ I , i i , 17 seq.w. Y. Sellar , The Roman Poets of the Augustan ~ g e , Horaceand the Elegiac Poets, The Clarendon Press, Ox ord,l899, 5-6Ibid . , 4.



1

••••••••••••••••• mediocribus esse poetisnon homines 1 non di, non concessere columnae.l3

Not only is such a mediocre poet displeasing to the gods and to

the cri t ics ; but the booksellers will have no use for him. So

the motives for striving necessary to achieve success are three,

the disapproval of those for whom poetry is meant, [homines],

the waste of a ta lent [d i ] , and the very pract ical motive that

even poets must se l l i f they are to eat [columnae].

This feeling of dissat isfact ion has been known by the great·

est of poets. Since the time of Horace, years have made i t a

commonplace among writers and in text-books of writing. The

advocates of untrammeled, unrevised writing are few and seldom

successful. But i t is from Horace that much of the respect for

revision and the admiration for careful work stems. Over and

over again in his work, he gives this advice and his practice

confirms his precept.

Distrust the advice of fr iends, he t e l l s the writer . I f

you would know the t ruth go to a cri t ic who is moved by no

feeling of affection. He gives us several pictures of poets who

are wealthy enough to reward their friends and so find their

verses praised:

•••••••••• clamabit enim 'pulchret benet rectaL'pallescet super his , etiam s t i l l ab i t amicisex oculis rorem, sa l ie t , tundet pede terram.l4

13 A.P. 372-3.14

Ibid.,428-430.



. - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - ~2such praise he compares to the enthusiasm of shi l ls at an auction

or hired mourners at a funeral . l5 And the clever thrust must

have gone home to many of the wealthy versif iers at Rome.

I f you were to show the verses to Quinti l ius , the tale

would be quite another:

••••••••••••••••••••••••••• rcorrige sodashoc' aiebat 1 et hoc 1 : melius te posse negares,bis terque expertum frustra , delere iubebatat male tornatos incudi reddere versus.s i defenders delictum quam vertere malles,nullum ul t ra verbum aut operam insumebat inanem,

quin sine r ival i teque e t tua solus amares.l6

This whole section of the Ad Pisones would t e l l the young

sons of Piso the necessity of revision and change i f the work is

to be worth anything. He l i s t s some of the faul ts to be guarded

against, - sluggishness, harahness, lack of polish, pompousness,

obscurity, and ambiguityl7. For, though these might to a friend

seem to be t r i f les , actually they will bring scorn down upon the

poet. There is l i t t l e room l e f t for self-sat isfact ion after such

an enumeration of dangers and faul t s .

He te l l s his readers

nee virtute foret clarisve potentius armisquam lingua Latium, s i non offenderet unumquemque poetarum limae labor et mora. Vqs, oPompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite quod nonmulta dies et multa l i tura coercuit atquepraesectum decies non cast igavit ad unguem.l8

15 Ibid . , 419-437.~ 6 Ibid. , 438-444.~ 7 Ibid . , 445-452.

18 Ibid . , 289-294.



3

we see here some hint of the care of a Virgil who did not want

the work of his l ife t ime to be published because he had not

reworked i t entirely nor finished i t s revision.

This standard is not entirely relat ive to the acceptance of

'the work, however. He admits that not every judge sees when a

poem lacks harmony. Merely because the patr iot ic pride of the

audience accepts inferior work because i t is Roman does not mean

that i t is worthy of a poet . The poet is working, not only to

gain fame, but to image forth the beauty that is in him. In

addition to the debt that he owes to the reader, the debt to the

Muse, that is his own ta lent , is greater.

tu nihi l invita dices faciesve Minerva:id t ib i iudicium est , ea 1 mens. s i quid taman olimscr ipser is , in Masci descendat iudicis auriset patr is et nostras, nonumque prematur in annum,membranis intus posi t is : delere l icebi t

quod non edideris ; nesci t vox missa rever t i . l9

Stringent rules these, to give to a young poet. For even

i f we allow for rhetorical exaggeration and the exigencies of

rhythm, nine years is s t i l l a long time to wait before publish

ing. And again the note of correction appearsl With Horace,

this idea of revis ion seems to have been almost the idee f ixe .

In the Epist les again he says that the good poet, the ideal

poet of the picture, wil l change and cut out and polish and move

words around •guam vis invita recedant•. 20 Horace's own ideas

19 Ibid. , 385-39020 ~ II , i i , 109 f f .



24

show the result of such revision and care. The 'curiosae

fe l ic i t a tes ' of which we hear so much from those who love Horace

can only be the product of hard work. 'Simplex munditiisr21,

rmale pert inaci t22, 'dwn loquimur, fugeri t invida aetast23,~ ~ perenniust24, 'Tu f rustra pius, heu, ~ i ta creditum ~ -cis QUintilium deost25, 'splendi'de mendaxt26. These and so many~ -others show the beauty of the r ight word in the r ight place. We

cannot imagine another word in their place.

The exigencies of the alcaic metre which is an ar t i f ic ia l

and sophisticated form make i t far from easy to write , a from

comparable to many of the more involved French metric forms.

~ e t Horace had used this form to express many of the deeper,

truer emotions, sacrificing nothing of thought to form. Two

stanzas from the third ode in the second book will i l lus t ra te

this more perfect ly than any words:

quo pinus ingens albaque populusunbram hospitalem consociare amant

ramis? quid obliquo laboratlympha fugax trepidare rivo?

hue vina et unguents et nimium brevisf loras amoenae ferre iube rosae,

dum res e t aetas e t sororumf i la trium patiuntur atra.27

Surely poetry l ike this is suff ic ient argument in favor of

21 Car. I , v, 5.22 Ibid., I , ix , 24.23 Ibid . , I , x i, 7.24 Ibid . , I I I , xxx, 1.25 Ibid . , I , xxiv, 11-12.26 Ibid . , I I I , xi, 36.

27 Ibid . , I I , i i i , 9-16.



Horace's advice to his ideal poet to work slowly, to revise

often, to publish only in the fullness of time.

25

These two, wisdom and care, are the chief qualif ications

which the writer of poetry must have i f he is to be successful.

Without them i t is hard to see how any man can be more than a

hasty, fly-by-night versif ier , an Edgar Guestian mewer of

s e n t i m ~ n t a l commonplaces.

**********

There are, however, other qualifications which, though not

as important as these in Horace's eyes s t i l l merit a mention.

one of these is a love of seclusion and the l i fe of the country

as opposed to the crowded hectic l i fe of Rome. He describes28

for us the l i fe of a Roman, the vis i ts to be made, readings to

be attended. An almost Juvenalian picture of the s t ree ts , con

gested with builders ' car ts , funerals, mad dogs and exaggerates,

but does not change the fact that at Rome the recollect ion

necessary for poetry was almost impossible. He goes on:

i nunc e t versus tecum meditare canoros.scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugi t urbem,r i te aliens Bacchi

somnogaudentis et

umbra:tu me inter strepitus nocturnes atque diurnosvis canere et contracts sequi vest igia vatum?29

This advice looks sound and has, indeed, been followed by

many. Yet i t seems scarcely true to say that the whole chorus

28 Epp. I I , i i , 65-75.

29 10!0., I I , i i , 76-80.



26

or· writers flees the ci ty. Neither in Horace's time, nor in our

own, nor in any age between, have a l l the greatest geniuses lived

in the country. Even Horace himself , despite his advice, has

been characterized throughout so many centuries as both urban and

urbane. As Sellar says, "There was no quality more cult ivated by

the Romans than urbanity, and the type of that quality in their

l i terature is Horace himselfn30.

Yet th is is no contradiction. Rather we see here two sides

of the same coin. When Horace says:31

0 rus, quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque l i ceb i tnunc veterum l ib r i s , nunc somno e t inert ibus horis ,ducere sol l ici tae iucunda oblivia vitae?

There are two things to notice, f i r s t that he seems genuinely

to yearn for the calm and ease of the country; and secondly, that

he is writing from the ci ty . There was a part of Horace devoted

to each. He had lived too long at Rome to be content for more

than a short while away from the glamor and excitement of court

l i fe . But now and again he would grow weary of gossip and long

meals, the legibus insanis32 , and sigh for the simple fare and

the simple l i fe which he knew as a boy.

o quando faba pythagoras cognata s i m u ~ q u e .uncta sa t is pingui ponentur holuscula 1 a r o o ? ~ 3

~ e v ~ r a L of his b e s ~ oaes t rea t of Gnis same s u b j ~ c ~ :

30 se l la r , 178.31 s e r ~ . I I , vi, 60-62.32 Ibid. , I I , vi, 69.33 Ibid . , I I , vi, 63-65.



i l le terrarum mihi praeter omnisangulus r idet , ubi non Hymettomella decedunt vir idique cer ta t

baca Venafro,ver ubi longum tepidasque praebetIuppi ter brumas, e t amicus Aulon

f e r t i l i Baccho minimum Falernisinvidet uvis.34

He owes his song to the country side a t Tibur:

sed quae Tirur aquae fe r t i le praefluuntet spissae namorum comae

fingent Aeolio carmine nobilem35

27

But in the very next l ine i t is the praise of the Romans, tha t

is , of the City of Rome, of which he boasts . No matter where he

he wrote, s t i l l i t was for the ci t izens of the ci ty for whom he

wrote.

Romae principia urbiumdignatur suboles inter amabilis

vatum ponere me choros36

How much of Horace's love for the country was merely a poetic

gesture in support of the Augustan reforms, i t is hard to say.

Wight Duff considers the love for the country one of the most

genuine things about Horace.

Horace's interes t in the country has .beendescribed as that of a townsman. This viewfa i ls to account for the glowing praises of

Tibusand

other places inI ta ly .

Tibur wasa passion with him ••• His l i fe of nature wasnot mrely derived from a sense of change fromci ty worries, although that counted, no doubt;i t was without the philosophic, almost re -l igious , content of Virgi l ' s a t t i tude. But

34 Car. I I , v i, 13-20.35 Ibid., IV, i i i , 10-12.36 Ib id . , IV, i i i , 13-15.



Horace's admirably vivid descriptive touchescan come only from loving o b s e r v a t i o n ~ 3 7 '

And Sellar says:

I f we ask what was the secret of his deepest

happiness, the answer which his odes supplyis that i t was his love of his Sabine farmand the other favorite spots in I taly , and inthe consciousness of inspirat ion and thepractice of his ar t associated with them.38

28

Feeling, then, as he did, that inspirat ion came easies t and

t ruest in tpe country, sub umbra39, is i t any wonder to us that

in his prayer to Apollo40 he should ask for nothing exotic or

rare , merely

me pascunt olivae,me cichorea levesque malvae.

f ru i paratis et valido mihi,Latoe, donas, a t , precor, integra

cum mente, nee turpem senectam1degere nee cithara carentem.4

Is i t any wonder that , having loved the country so much, he ad-

vises the young poet:

I nunc a t versus tecum meditare canoros.scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugi t urbem. 42

Nor is the true poet greedy for possessions •

••••••••••••••••••••••••• vat is avarusnon temere est animus; versus amat, hoc studet unum.43

In other words, l ike Horace himself walking down the Via Sacra,

37 Duff, 539-540.38 Sellar , 180.39 Car. I , xxxii , 1 .40 I'6'Id • 1 .I 1 XXX i •

41 Ibid. , I , xxxi, 15-20.

42 Epp. I I , i i 76-77.43 Ibid . , I I , !, 119-120.



29

be is totus in i l l i s 44 • I f so often he advises his fr iends to

avoid avarice l e s t i t draw them from the study of philosophy45,

or l e s t i t take away their joy in possession46, the poet, above

al l , should avoid i t .

For avarice causes anxiety:

non enim gazae neque consularissummovet l ic tor miseros tumultusmentis at curas laqueata circum

tecta volant is .vivi tur parvo bene, cui paternumsplendet in mensa tenui salinumnee levis somnos t i m ~ ~ aut cupido

sordidus aufert .

and anxiety is f a t a l to the writing of good poetry. For peace

did Horace bid his poet flee the ci ty and go to the country; but

this wil l effect nothing i f he takes the cares of avarice with

him. The words quoted above hoc studet ~ show that the chief

care of the poet should be with his writ ing. He gives us in the

next l ine a picture of a poet with an ivory-tower at t i tude who

only smiles at losses, fugit ive slaves , and f i res . Of course,

even the most abstracted of writers might do more than smile i f

his house caught f i re ; but Horace wants to bring out his point

clearly to the reader. The poet must give up his desire to gain

money and populari ty. For though the poet may be a favori te with

the gods, he wil l s t i l l be envied by the crowd and attacked by

44 Car. I , xxix, 13-16.45 lDIQ. , I I , i i .46 Serm. I , ix , 2.

47 Car. I I , xvi, 9-16.



CHAPTER III

THE INSTRUMENT O:F' A POET

Ancient l i t era ture did not have any school of writers who

denied that the function of words is to convey ideas. To the

class ical mind, words, i f they had no meaning, had no value.

They were dif ferent ia ted from the media of the other arts by the

fact that through words ideas are direct ly conveyed. This s t r i c t

factual at t i tude again was a part of that kind of mind which more

easily loses i t se l f in materialism than in idealism. This was

the Roman at t i tude.

Horace's in te res t in words was, as we might expect, intense.

For.him words were the raw material out of which poetry is made;

and he t r ied by his example and precept to show the use of words

and to give some rules of good taste in this regard. In a counby

so subject to foreign influences as the Rome of Horace's time,

i t is not strange that many men adulterated the puri ty of their

own language with foreign importations. The reason is s t i l l more

evident when we consider the re la t ive poverty of Latin i t se l f in

color-words, in abstract ions and expecially in that kind of ad

Jectives which lends i t se l f to the writing of poetry. Latin was

the language of the lawyer, not the lover, of the histor ian, not

31



chosen represents more than a ~ de force. Horace certainly

did not think so:

1 at magnum fec i t quod verbis Graeca Latinismiscuit . t 0 sari studiorumt quina putet is

dif f ic i le e t m i r l l i ~ , Rhodio quod Pitholeonticontigit13

poetry is not prose, where a lawyer may use any means possible to

win the case of his cl ient . 4 Borrowing from the Greek, i f i t is

to be undertaken at a l l , must be done with good tas te .

He declares, for instance, against the l iber t ies

taken by the "new poets" and more especial ly

against their excessive borrowings from theGreek. I t was an affectat ion which led towriting of a macaronic kind; and a t an earlydate Horace had expressed his disl ike for thisincongrous mixture, while recognizing that ahappy blend was capably of charm, as was ask i l l fu l mixing of Falernian wine with Chian.on the other hand he is alive to the pressingneed for a r icher poetic vocabulary; and heasser ts the poet 's r ight to adopt new words incurrent use, or to create others out of Latinroots on the analogy of the Greek, in order toexpress ideas for which no equivalent existedin Latin.s

But what was this good taste? vVhat quality different iated

between original Roman writ ing, and a second-rate imitation of

the Greek. Here is what he says:

in verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendisdixeris egregie notum s i call ida verbumreddideri t iunctura novum.6

This is the f i r s t principle, not to f i l l a poem with exotic and

scarce- in tel l ig ible verbiage, but taking old familiar words, to

3 Serm. I , x, 20-23.4 Ibid . , I , x, 23-30.5 Atkins, 81.

L6_ A .P . 46-48 •



. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ 4combine them in such a way that they seem new. With a call ida

iunctura l ink together the everyday words and make them f i t for

the message which poetry would convey. This is not easy. But as

we have seen, Horace did not claim that the writing of real

poetry would be easy. Is i t rewarding: does i t achieve i t s end?

If we may judge by the works of Horace himself and of the great

poets since his time, the answer is overwhelmingly, yes. The

odes are written in the language which Cicero and Tacitus used.

New words are few, yet because Horace labored to combine his

words as he advises his poet to do, the odes ring with the music

of true poetry.

In the third stanza of the Fons Bandusiae:

Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,me dicente cavis impositam ilicem

saxis, unde loquaces

lymphae desil iunt tuae.7

There are no words which surprise us. Yet note the perfection of

the adjective loquaces to express the babble of Bandusia's w a t e r ~But more than any one word, i t is the combination of 'i' sounds

which gives so much of the l iquid sound of water to the stanza.

The le t te r 'i' or 'Y' occurs fourteen times. Yet there are only

common words, commonplace words used to achieve the effect which

Horace desired. They are joined by the band of a master.

There is a wealth of suggestion in the use of candidus to

modify the breezes of springs. I t is the shining word to ex-

7 Car. I I I , x i i i , 13-16.8 Ibid. , I I I , xi i , 1.



the shining newness of the season.

35

To ca l l the years,

"Fugaces" 9, a wife, "placensttlO, to say that " i l le terrarum mihi

praeter omnis angulus r ide tn l l , or to say that

omnes eodem cogimur, omniumversatur urna ser1us ociusso rs exi tura at nos in aeternum

exsil1um impositura cumbae.l2

is to use words according to Horace's own precept. He has used

the words of ordinary speech and made of them poetry.

When we compare these epithets and passages to the exag

gerated dimunitives and Graecisms of Catullus, vetul i , flosculus,

integellum, l ibellum, label la , basiat1ones, febriculosi , turgi

duli , l3 we see how much Horace made out of the cold, formality

of Latin. Later on the elegis ts wandered even far ther from the

conversational tone of the odes, and from their work we come back

to Horace to be refreshed and delighted by his simplicity. Yet

he is not monotonous. With his instrument he has fashioned songs

of love, of patriotism, of nature which do not pa l l . We are re -

minded at once of Housman's poignantly plain meloncholy, of

Wordsworth's delight in nature and of the almost casual glory of

some of Shakespeare's sonnets.

For the greates t poets have not needed the color and flame

of imagery to bring their meaning to the reader.

9 Ibid. , I I , xiv, 1.10 rEia., I I , x1v, 21.11 Ibid. I I I , x i, 13-14.12

Ibid . , I I , i i i , 25-28.13 cf. carmina, 27, 24, 15, 14, 8, 7, 6, 3 .....



. - - - - - - - - - - ~6

We are such s tuf f

As dreams are made on; and our l i t t l e l i fe

Is rounded with a sleep

I must not think of thee; and t i red yet strong,I shun the thought that lurks in a l l del ight .

Had we never loved so kindlyHad we never loved so blindly,

Never met, and never parted,we had n 1 er been broken-hearted.

There are simple words, short words, the words of daily l i f e .

But through them rings the pathos, the tragedy of poetry. I t was

such words as these that Horace himself used and bad his model

poet to use.

Horace continues in the same passage on the use of words:

s i forte neoesse estindioiis monstrare reoentibus abdita rerum,fingere oinotutis non exaudita Cethegiscontingat, dabiturque l ioentia sumpta pudenter;a t nova fiotaque nuper habebunt verba fidem s i

Graeoo fonte cadent, parae detor ta . l4

We contrast this with the passage quoted above r idiculing those

who considered i t a great feat to use many Greek words. But

Horace is not contradicting himself. In one place he complains

about the excessive and unnecessary use of Greek words. In the

present ci ta t ion he takes care of a l l the conditions which govern

the employment of foreign words. Fir s t of a l l existing language

must be inadequate for the expression of something new, secondly,

new words must be used Eudenter, which we might t ranslate ,

subtly, thirdly, they must be employed only parae. With these

three conditions Horace removes the danger of pedantry, of need-

14 ~ 48-53.



· - - - - - - - . ,l i t t l e doubt that he meant the same principles to appiy to a

change of subject matter in other forms. The language of the

odes varies in mood and tone from that of the epis t les and

sat i res . Chaucer's Prioresse speaks quite another brand of

English from that of the Millere. Kipling's language changes

from the dust and sun of "Gunga Din11 to the solemn pomp of "Re-

cessional". This is what Horace means.

The r ight choice of words demands of the poet r igid se l f -

discipLine; no matiter how he !'eeJ.s about a certia1n wora, i f i t

btl ouv or pJ.ace, lti musli go.

audeo1t, quaecumque parum splenuor1s h ~ b t ~ b u n t ·e t sine pondere erunt et honore indigna ferentur ,verba movere loco, quamvis invi ta recedante t versentur adhuc in t ra penetral ia Vestae:obscurata diu populo bonus eruet atqueproferet in lucem speciosa vocabula rerum,quae pr isc is memorata Catonibus atque Cethegisnunc s i tus informis premit e t deserta vetustas;adsciscet nova, quae genitor produxerit usus:vehemens e t l iquidus puroque simillimus amnifundet opes Latiumque beabit divi te l ingua;

l u x u r i a n t ! ~ compescat, nimis aspera sanolevabi t cultu, vir tute carantia to l le t , l9

Atkins says20:

Here he was condemning a l l hackneyed and colorless words, not the simple direct words of everyday speech; though centuries l a t e r the passagegave support to the neo-classical demand for anar t i f i c ia l diction, as was seen in the effectedperiphrast ic speech of eighteenth century verse.

Commenting :i.n another place on this same passage, .Atkins says21:

19 ~ I I , i i , 111-123.20 Atkins, 80.21 Ib id . , 83.



~ - - - - - - - - . 9

Your good poet, when he begins to write will.assume also the sp i r i t of an honest censor.He wil l exercise judgment in his choice ofwords, discarding those that are undignified,bringing back old-fashioned, picturesque terrnBonce used by Cato and Cethegus, adopting new

words that have been sanctioned by usage orcustom, a t the same time raising language to ahigher power by processes or pruning and re f ining.

Such is Horace's answer to the question of poetic dictions.

Should there be a special dict ion, special words for poetry? No,

answers Horace, not i f this is to mean ar t i f ic ia l i ty and obscur-

i ty . Should t;he diction of poetry differ from the dict ion of

prose? Yes, in so far as i t is more precise, more picturesque,

briefer , more charged with emotion. In this way he avoids the

extravagances of purple patches, of wildly picturesque ~ r d s , and

at the same time _he escapes the jejune barrenness of some of the

modern versif iers . We musli not think t h ~ t H o . ~ : · ~ c " w i : : s h ~ u to t rea t

this matter theoretically, considering both sides and weighing

them. What he t r ied to do was to give prac t ica l precepts, not to

cri t ics and savants, but to those who were attempting to write

poetry.

In this connection, Horace would, I think, make the same

dist inction which Professor Lowes makes between connotation and

denotation.22 We have no diff icul ty making this dis t inct ion in

English poetry:

22 J . L. Lowes, Convention and Revolt, Chap. V, ttThe Diction ofPoetry vs. Poetic Dictionw; Constable, London, 1938, 180 f f .



The difference then between the dict ion ofpoetry and that of prose depends on a dif fer -

ence between the functions of words in twomediums. The business of words in prose isprimarily to sta te ; in poetry, not only tos tate , but also (and sometimes primarily) tosuggest. In such prose words may be used fortheir exact, precisely delimited meaning alone,speaking only to the hard clear in te l lec t . Anyblurring of their sharp definiteness by v a g u ~or especially by emopional associations, intrudes a t once a disturbing influence. The termsmust be cold as a diagram ••• words in scient i f ic

prose are used for their denotation. They mustsuggest nothing beyond the rigorous exactitudeof their sense ••• But in poetry ••• the suggestions, the connotations of words - that const i

tutes in large degree the verys tuff

out of whichthe poet works.23

40

The modern reader labors under the diff icul ty of not feeling

the connotations of Latin and Greek words. Often indeed even the

denotation is gotten only after struggle with a dictionary. we

do not know the re la t ion of words to the Greek, - to Sappho, to

~ l c a e u s , to the early Romans, to Ennius and Terance. we can not

~ o w the indefinable scent of marketplace or farm which followed

this or that word for the Roman reader.

I f , two thousand years from now, some foreign reader were to

come upon t;he word "bit ter-sweet" in an English verse, i t might

convey to him an oxymoron or the name of a certain "shrubby or

climbing plant with green flowers succeeded by orange pods that

display a red ar i l" as the dictionary te l l s us. To him the

"bittersweet" would not bring the autumn and the scent of burning

leaves and the days of f ros t and sun. To him this "shrubby

23 Atkins, 181-2.



. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~1

!Plant" would not be the emblem of swnmer 1 s dying or the symbol of

~ e a r t a c h e and sadness. I t would be merely a word to be t rans

lated into some foreign tongue carrying with i t no picture, no

connotation.

I f , then, the words of Horace on poetic diction seem barren

and f rui t less , le t us reca l l that he was not deliberately cutting~

the Roman poet off from the sources of beauty. He was rather

bidding him to look around and find the beauty for his work in

the nuances, in the recollections, in the shadows of everyday

words.

The Ars Poetica begins with one of Horace's counsels on the

mode of expression, which is famous.

Humano capit i cervicem pictor equinamiungere s i ve l i t , • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •. . . . . . . . .credite, Pisones, i s t i tabulae fore librumpersimilem cuius, velut aegri somnia, vanaefingentur species, ut nee pes nee caput unireddatur formae. 1 pictoribus atqu.e poetisquidlibet audendi semper fui t aequa potestas.•scimus, e t hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim;sed non ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut

serpentes avibus geminentur, t igr ibus agni.24

This is a Summa of Horace's advice on expression as well as on

good tas te . I t is told in a metaphor; b1.lt no one who wanted to

write poetry could have any doubt as to i t s meaning. For i t is

another plea for moderation and good tas te . These two were the

24 A.P. 1-13.



. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~3twenty l ines of the Ars Poetica, the emphasis is on avoidance of

excess in various parts of the process of composition. "Choose

a subject which is within your powerstt we are told25. I f we do

this we wil l not lack words or clear order. For the true beauty

of order in a poem consists, not in saying a l l beautiful things,

but in expressing these which be£it the occasion.26

Horace next mentions some rules for use of words which we

have treated in the f i r s t part of this chapter, a l l of which f i t

in with the general thesis of moderation and f i tness . Meter de-

mands the same care and thought as the other elements of a poem.

Tradition has long assigned various meter to various subjects and

without offense to the audience the young poet cannot change

them. \Vhether we agree with this dictum or not, we should rea

l ize that Horace did not mean to exclude variety. Certainly

nothing of variety of mood or treatment is lacking in his own

use of, for example, the alcaic stanza. Horace followed the

general rules for the form; but within the framework which he had

chosen, he painted many different pic tures .

In a long section on expression in tragedy, Horace merely

continues this advice and applies i t to the construction of

tragedy and comedy along more or less Aristotelian l ines. He

pleads for correct meter to bef i t the diverse types. Then he

says one of the br i l l i an t things which have always endeared the

25 Ibid . , 38-40.

26 Ibid . , 70-82.



~ Poetica to cr i t i c s . He bids the poet:

s i vis me f l a re , dolendum estprimum ips i t ib i : ~ ~ c tua me infortunia laedent,Telephe vel Palau.

44

~ b a s e words apply not only to the drama but to every form of

poet izing. Even now this plea for s incer i ty in emotion makes us

wonder a t the wisdom of this man who l ived in an age of pol i te

insincer i t ies such as we find in Ovid and the Elegiac wri ters .

And splendid advice i t is . Even Wordsworth, the prophet of the

"Romantic" movement would agree:

I have said tha t poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; i t takes i t s originfrom emotion recollected in t ranquil l i ty; theemotion is contemplated t i l l , by a species of re -action, the t ranquil l i ty gradually disappears andan emotion, kindred to that which was before thesubject of contemplation, is gradually produced,and does i t s e l f actually exis t in the mind. Inthis mood successful c.omposition generally begins ••• 28

Simplicity and the power of making the ~ o s t di f f icu l t work seem

easy is the t rues t sign of an ar t i s t •

.ut s ib l quivissperet idemA sudet multum frustraque laboretausus ldem.G9

Byron imitates this b i t in his Hints From Horace3o.

\Yhom nature guides, so writes that every dunce

Enraptured thinks to do the thing a t once;But after inky thumbs and bi t ten nai ls ,And twenty scattered quires, the coxcomb fa i l s .

27 Ib id . , 102-104.28 w. Wordsworth, Complete Poetical Works, Houghton Mifflin,

Boston, 1904, 796.29 A.P. 240-242.30 POems and Plays of Lord Bryon, Everyman's Edit ion, Dent,

London, 1930, I , 256.



45Similal:' al:'e the wol:'ds which we have quoted befol:'e, "ludentis

speciem dabit et tol:'quebitul:'".31

The impol:'tant point is that the

wol:'k must not show thl:'ough and make the whole work redolent of

ink eradicator. Rather thework

mustseem, tl1ough

i twil l

seldom

be, the resul t of a sudden moment's inspil: 'ation. The value of ·

this pl:'ecept we see from an examination of the odes and from a

pel:'sonal effor t a t imitation of them. The difference will con

vince any Latinis t that smoothness in such composition is di f f i -

cult , but necessal:'y. Housman describes most amusingly this

diff icul ty of making the works f i t the concept:

One more (stanza) was needed, but i t did not come.I had to turn to and compose i t myself and thatwas a laborious business. I wl:'ote i t thir teentimes, and i t was more than a twelve-month befol:'eI got i t r ight .32

Yet when we examine the poem33 we cannot sul:'ely t e l l which

of the stanzas took so much time and label:'. Seemingly they a l l

flow with that effor t less ease which Hol:'ace advises his Poet to

cul t ivate .

In two bl:'ief l ines Horace gives a warning which a l l teachers

of litel:'atul:'e give to their students:

quidquid praecipies esto bl:'evis, ut ci to dictapercipiant animi dociles teneantque f ideles .omne supervacuum plano de pectol:'e manat.34

He does not hel:'e outlaw a l l long poems; but mel:'ely points out

31 ~ I I , i i , 124.32 Name and Natul:'e, 49-50.33 A. E. Housman, A Shl:'opshire Lad, Kagan Paul, Trench, Trubner,

1896, #68.34 A.P. 335-337.



~ - - - - - - - ~CHAPTER IV

SOME LACUNAE

Horace's picture of a poet is by no means complete. I t is a

sketch, hast i ly drawn in which only the foregroung is c lear . Of

the background which give depth and tone to the whole, Horace

says almost nothing. For Horace was not an interpreter of l i f e ;

but an ar t i s t of l iving things and people. His poetry is the

poetry of the foreground. His crit icism is the crit icism of the

foreground. And both flow from his manner of thought which dealt

with the concrete present, eschewing the misty past and the

problematical future.

Lit t le did Horace say of the nature of man which is the

basis for a l l discussions of the poetic experience. He cared

rather for "human nature" that far more colorful , tangible innned-

iate ent i ty . To other, to Lucretius, to Virgil , even to Cicero,

he l e f t discussion of cosmic, general t ruths . For him the t ruthof present pain or rapture, the beauty of Tibur, the figure of

Augustus were enough. Therefore, his colors were the v i ~ i dprimary t in ts ; these were capable of expressing vivid primary

emotions. Despite his casualness, Horace was not sophistocated

in his react ions. His joys were simple joys and his sorrows were

47



~ - - - - - - 4 8 - . ,aot complex.

Yet he was a product of his times. His l iving and his p o e ~Nere conditioned by the triumph of Octavius and by the dream of

~ h e Empire. We f ind in Horace ~ o m e t h i n g of the narrowness of

Rome which called i t se l f simply, urbs, and make the wonders of

the Grient and the wastes of the o c c i d e ~ t mere t r ibutaries of a

port on the Adriat ic . That things outside of Rome could be other

than t r ibute seemed unlikely in the ages when the empire ruled

the world. From a poet whof e l t

more~ i n s h i p

with the world we~ o u l d expect far other poetry and far other cr i t ic ism.

The las t force which affected the work of Horace, adding

~ o m e l ines to his port ra i t of a poet, was the stream of Hellen-

i s t i c , and therefore pagan culture which had become the heritage

of Rome. This culture, though i t sprang from polytheist ic be-

ginnings, had become ra t ional is t ic and material . Lucretius, i t

seemed, had pulled the gods from their heights; leaving reason

supreme in the temple of the world. And Horace, although undoubt·

edly 11 in favor of" rel igion (as witness his Odes] based what

theory of poetry he had on the mind and natural ta lents of man.

We have said something of Roman pragmatism ear l ier ; here we

merely want to point out that some of the most notable lacunae in

his poetic t h e o ~ y are the resul t of the paganism of Horace.

Any discussion on the vocation of a poet must logically

s tar t with a thorough and rea l knowledge of just what poetry i s .



~ 9This is not to say that the f inal word of this has been said or

i l l ever be said; but merely to say that the writer should have

an integrated theory of the nature of poetry, which, although not

defini t ive, wi l l be coherent and logical .

But no theory of poetry stands alone. I t is only a part of

a man's entire philosophy; and depends greatly on what the prin-

oiples of that philosophy happen to be. An ideal is t ic philo-

sophy with i t s denial of matter will lead to far other poetic con

elusions than either the exaggerated realism of Plato, or the

oderate realism of Aris tot le .

I t is not the logical , but the metaphysical background of

oetry which distinguishes the real i s t ic poetry of Chaucer from

the nominalistic poetry of the imagists and impressionists. I t

is an entire ly different concept of man which prompts the dramas

of Euripides and those of Aeschylus. The poetry of Catullus was

the poetry of sensism, while that of Lucretius was intensely

inte l lectual . The "moral" value of a man's work, which we cannot

deny, though we might find i t dif f icul t to define, varies accord

ing to the philosophy which motivates him.

Horace was conscious of the moral purpose of poetry. He

ada the poet be sure to miscere ut i le duloi; but he seems to

ave taken i t for granted that the ut i le for a l l would be o o n s i d ~ered by them to be the same as his . And in this, he erred

greatly. we have only to look a t the whims and vagaries of poets



50

since his time, their advocacy of ar t for ar t ' s sake, their

hedonism, their abandonment to sense to real ize Horace's error.

or these poets have not abandoned the teacher 's mantle; they

have lent their talents to teach doctrines which they thought

useful, but of which Horace would have disapproved heart i ly .

Indeed, the almost casual exhortation in the Ars Poetica to

to study the Socraticae chartae was not enough. In the press of

pract ical rules for composition i t is quite lost and i t s import

ance not stressed. The Pisos, and students since then, could

have found i t as easy to disregard as the rules for the number of

actors. Horace would not have wanted this . Yet, because his

philosophy i t se l f was a t radi t ion, rather than a well-rounded

system, he gave the aspiring poet only this somewhat jejune

advice.

This is not to say that the poet should give way to the

philosopher in our picture . Horace himself was not a profound or

original thinker. Yet he had his own philosophy of the golden

mean, a philosophy of the f o r e g ~ o u n d , but one which covered the

foreground well . Professor D'Alton described this philosophy:

In the De Offici is , Cicero ••• applies the law ofD e c o r u m ~ o the regulation of human conduct. As

I have already said, that law is grounded in theconcept of the golden mean which is our surestguide in l i f e . Whether in speech or dress, i t

cal ls upon us to avoid the excesses of effeminacyand boorishness. In expense or display, i t wil lprevent us from going to a vulgar extreme, and inour dealings with our fellow-men will help us to

keep oure m o ~ i o n s

underc o n ~ r o l .

The law of propriety above a l l demands a uniform consistency in



each single action and in our l i fe as a whole.Man must be t rue, not only to his own individual character, but, as the Stoics especiallywould ins i s t , to the universal laws of humannature. From these a social sense is developedwhich imposes on man his most solemn duty, andhelps to

discipline his inst inctswithin proper

l imi ts . A community will have i ta establishedcustoms, and conventions to which i t s members

1must conform, i f i t s existence is to be assured.

51

How weak this is we can see, when we p i t the force of man's

passions and emotions against the nsocial sense'' which is fos

tered by the Law of Decorum. For Horace, i t was sufficient: for

others, unless backed up by something more ultimate, ei therphilosophy or religion, tne Law of Decorum would prove sadly

inadequate.

Horace's r e ~ i g i o n was not a serious element in his ~ r e a ~ m e n tof poetry. I n s ~ e a d of providing a strong, solid background for

his moral principles, i t too was a matter of the foreground, a

~ u b l i c policy of value only because of i ts restraining influence

on lawlessness. Augustus, i t is true, favored a return to the

tancient forms of religion; but this was a matter of policy which

~ i d not affect greatly those who advocated i t most strongly.

Consequently, nowhere in the l i te rary epis t les does Horace

make the point that the man of le t te rs , and especially the poet,

should be a man of rel ig ion. Perhaps this was not clear to him:

he had, after a l l , a firm foundation for his morality and con-

~ J . F. D'Alton, Roman Literary Theory and Criticism, Longmans,London, 1931, 369-370.



52sidered that others would have the same. But when a man's phi lo-

sophy is such a relat ive, subjective thing as Horace's Law of

Decorum, nothing in i t guarantees permanence. I t is only the

eternal truths of re l igion, whether that religion be Christian

or pagan, which can stabil ize a moral code.

For, in the f ina l analysis, ar t , though i t moves in a d i f f e ~ant sphere than prudence, is not entirely independent. The pur

pose of language is to convey ideas; and ideas should conform to

t ruth . Distinctions we may make between "poetic truth" and

"logical truth" and "ontological truth", for there are dist inc-

t iona. No one demands that poetry assume the accuracy of a

scient i f ic t rea t i se , or the dogmatism of a text-book. Yet, i f we

divorce the ideas of the poet completely from the order of

real i ty , we shall promote chaos of thought and of l iv ing.

Horace's picture of a poet is by no means complete. I t i s , as

every work of ar t must be, conditioned by the man and the t imes.

A case might be made for the notion that some poetry is

amoral. A lyric , taken out of context, may yield a beauty

whether or not we agree with i t s basic assumptions. But any poem

taken in context, studied, in other words, in the l ight of the

considerations which were important to the author has a didactic

quality which we cannot ignore. This is , of course, notably true

in an author so conscious of the teaching mission of the poet as

was Horace.



and again,

os tenerum pueri balbumque poeta f igurat,torquet ab obscenis iam nunc sermonibus aurem,mbx etiam pectus praeceptis format amicisasperi ta t is e t invidiae corrector e t irae2

orientia tempera nQtis1nstrui t exemplis inopem solatur e t aegrum0

53

~ p e a k i n g of the mission of the early poets, he notes the same

~ o i n t ,fu i t haec sapientia quondam,

publica privat is secernere, sacra profanis,concubitu prohibere vago, dare iura marit is ,oppida moliri , leges incidere l igno.sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atquecarminibus venit •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••. . . . .. . .

dictae per carmina sortes ,e t vitae monstrata via est4

Professor D'Alton, after showing that in ancient times the

ethical view of poetry was prevalent, points out that Horace

~ o l l o w e dthe trend,

Apart from other considerations, the Augustancr i t ic fe l t bound to defend an a r t which hadbeen based by the numerous poetasters of thetime, and to show that such a levis insaniacould make some contribution to the common-wealth. Hence he sets forth the civi l iz inginfluence of poetry in the primitive conditionof the human raoe. He defends the Old Comedyand Satire , on the ground that they perform a

useful service to society. He moreover investsthe poet with a religious sanction as a pries tof the Muses, and presses poetry into the service of rel ig ion. The worthy poet is the guardian of virtue and can guide the young i n ~ o pathsof goodness. The function that Horace assignsthe Chorus is preeminently a rel igious and moralone. The poet can draw his best material from

2 ~ II, i , 126-129 •~ . ,I I , i , 130-131.4 A P. 396-404.



the Socraticae chartae which wil l teach himespecially the various duties of l i fe .5

54

Philosophy and re l igion were al l ied to poetry, but what a philo

sophy, and what ra l igionl

Horace, whose odes, as we have seen, are now andthen consecrated to the restoration of r e l i g i o n ~was every whit as secular minded as Cicero. Helaughed a t supersti t ion and r idiculed the ideaof a divine interest in men, when he expressedhis own feel ing. No one was ever more thoroughlyEpicurean in the t ruest sense of the word; no oneaver urged more pleasantly the Epicurean theory

C a r ~ a diem; no one ever had more deeply ingrainedin im the belief mors ultima linea rerum es t .

His candour, his humor, his fr iendliness, combineto give him a very human charm, but in a l l thatis associated with the religious side of man•sthought and experience, he is s ter i le and insuff icient .6

~ e n we read a description of Roman religion in the early empire,

rea can understand why Horace did not demand that his ideal poet

be a rel igious man.

In the f i r s t place i t may safely be said thatthis strange medley of Greek and Roman ideas,of popular folk-lora and the abstract speculat ions of philosophers, would certainly not haveappeared unnatural to an Augustan reader. We

never hear of any outcry against Virgi l ' s•unorthodoxy•, and the same mingling of concaptions meets us in contemporary poets: inHorace with a more marked note of scepticism,in Ovid with the added savour of flippancy.7

The l i terary appeal, of such a religion is obvious. Virgil spun

a beautiful tale about i t ; Horace used i t as i t suited his mood.

But of i t s ethical value we may share some doubt with Augustus

5 D1Alton, 487.6 T. R. Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire,

Menthuen, L o n d o ~ , 1909,-r9-ll. - - - - -

7 c. Bailey, Religion in Virgi l , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1935,306.



55

himself who desired eagerly a return to the simple beliefs of the

ancient Romans.

I f i t seems foolish to demand religion of a poet in view of

the blatant agnosticism of many prominent poets since Horace's

time, we should recal l that some of them disavowed any didactic

or moral purpose in poetry, and so freed themEelves to some ex-

tent from crit icism on this ground. They wrote, as i t were, to

be read out of context. But the great majority of those who pro-

fessed no religion lived s t i l l in the great stream of Christ ian-

i ty , and were influenced, although unconsciously, by the Christ-

ian eth ic .

We may complain.· that Horace demanded no set t led ethical

standards from his poet beside the varying and fugitive golden

mean. We can only regret that because of the divine plan, he had

not the Christian ethic to offer and to demand from the Pis·os and

those who would come af ter . For the gulf between the Christian

concept of the purpose of poetry, i t s meaning, i t s beauty, and

the Pagan concept is one which only the divine poetry of the

Redemption could cross. How was the concept so changed? Only byshowing again the true ordination of the world which had almost

been forgotten af ter the f a l l .

Man's prolonged, impassioned quest for truth cameto frui t ion in the knowledge that here was theTruth incarnate before his eyes, not merely asa personified abstraction, but as the Way bywhich he might enter upon i ts ful les t knowledge

and the Life whereby he might truly begin to be.For the f i r s t time in the history of the human



race, af ter so many centuries of aspirat ionand endeavor, man had come into the authenticexperience of Beauty, not. in i t s completeness,since that is reserved for eterni ty , but certainly the suff ic ient clar i ty for him to t ranslate the experience into terms of l iving, and

l i fe so understood into terms of ar t .

The New Law did not make a new world, but i texplained the old.s

56

For the poet of Horace's time, the world was old and very weary.

Beauty there was; but i t was the sad beauty of death. Lucretius

cnanted i t in his hymn to death. Virgi l ' s whole poem is fraught

with hopeless sorrow. Horace te l l s us that ,11vitae summa brevis

s ~ e m ~ vetat incohare longam"; and Catullus in the midst of

passion cannot forget that , "nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,

nox es t perpetua ~ dormienda".9 The sadness of the poets was

~ u l l of longing but empty of hope. Horace looking about for

advice to give to aspiring poets, found only the s te r i l i ty of

~ u l e s for composition.

I t was l e f t for the theologians and poets of the Christian

dispensation to show that beauty has i t s truest meaning only as

a participation in the eternal , perfect beauty of the Godhead.

~ o r them, the loveliness of nature, of man, of works of a r t in

~ a i n t , marble or the fragile web of words, - a l l these have their

~ a l u e . They are truly beautiful . They f i l l the senses and the

~ i n d with joy and peace. Of themselves, to some extent, they do

this ; but when seen as works from the hand of God, as creatures

~ B. Kelly, The Sudden Rose, Shead and Ward, New York, 1939,96-7

9 Car. V, 5-s : -



57of His love and mirrors of His splendour, they take on a new,

~ o n d e r f u l beauty unknown and unfel t by Horace.

To the Christian poet is the advice given, "Seek ye f i r s t

the kingdom of God •••• " for in a splendid redundacy a l l things

lead to that kingdom and that kingdom in turn leads back to the

earthly things which are man's immediate concern. In the f ie ld

of ethics this doctrine applied to man has led to Christian con

cepts of love, of family l i f e , of honor, of pleasure. In the

f ield of esthet ics , i t has givennew

meaning to the sensible ob

jects with which the ar t i s t works. In poetry, especially, i t has

given a proportion which the ancients lacked. The poet is no

longer pries t ; a l tars are no longer erected to the god of song.

Instead, the poet has become an acolyte in the long procession

~ e n d i n g toward God, and poems are so many flowers placed in token

of worship before the al tar where God dwells. Christ ianity has

taken from the poet his awful task of pries t and prophet with i t s

responsibi l i ty and i t s fu t i l i ty . And, in so doing, i t has freed

him to sing with a happier tone, a l ighter heart and words far

t ruer . For now he sees and judges a l l things in the blinding

l ight of the Redemption.

In Horace's picture, we miss both philosophy and re l igion,

and most of the inadequacy of his foreground sketch comes about

because these two are missing. Whether this inadequacy is

Horace's faul t or the fau l t of his times and environment and edu-

cation and heri tage, we shal l not attempt to define. But we are



58saddened by i t both because of i t s effect on Horace's own l i fe ,

and on his cri t ic ism. For excellent as the rules were which

~ o r a c e laid down, they only serve to highlight the i n c o m p l e t e n e s ~~ e might even say the superf icial i ty , of the whole.

When we use the word "superficial" of Horace's cri t icism, we

use i t only in a comparative sense. Compared to the Christian

picture of the poet, i t is unsatisfactory; but compared to the

res t of ancient crit icism, the Ars Poetics and the other l i te rary

works shine. Alone of the ancients, excepting Aris tot le , Horace

nas walked the streets of many ci t ies with many generations of

poets guiding their footsteps and giving them advice which as

Saintsbury says, "when r ightly taken, has not los t , nor is ever

l ikely to lose, cr i t i ca l validitytt.lO

Yet, thought as a whole we gladly accept the legacy of

Horatian precept, i t is only fa i r to note that 11 the cr i t i ca l

att i tude of Horace is a woefully incomplete onettll. And this

from a l i te rary point of view, leaving aside for a time, the most

fundamental considerations of Philosophy and re l igion. The chief

defect of this type is the in te l lec tual mood of the crit icism and

in turn, of the picture of a poet. Saintsbury blames th is and

says: ttExcept in a few passages •••• there is no 1 soul 1 in him. He

has no enthusiasm, no passiontt.l2 A. Y. Campbell complains that

10 G. E. Saintsbury, Historl of Criticism, Dodd, New York, 1902 1

I , 227.11 Ibid. ,I227.

12 Ibid . , 228.



59

Horace uses an "approach too merely in tel lectual" and that he was

imbued with "the philosophic fallacy, the in te l lec tual is t ic con

ception of moralsnl3. Horace, of course, was not so foolish as

to deny the need for emotion, for enthusiasm, for verve and de-

l igh t .

ego nee studium sine divite venanee rude quid prosi t video ingenium; alter ius sicaltera poscit opem res e t coniurat amicel4

But ingenium is surely a weak word for the dreams and visions

which we expect, thoughwe do not always receive them, from an

ideal poet. "Virtue consists in the t r in i tar ian doctrine, as in

Cicero's De Oratore, which advocates the perfect blending of

these quali t ies of phusis, melete, episteme. On the other hand,

error consists in following the unitarian doctrine of ingen

ium.nl5 All very well, we say, a l l very well; but what does

Horace t e l l our youne poet of the joyous labor of writ ing. Of

the labor, he says much; of the joy, nothing.

Reading Horace, they ~ h e aspiring p o e t ~ might be tempted

to think of poetry as merely another trade, demanding work,

bringing the rewards of fame sooner or la ter , a prop of govern-

ment, a channel of propaganda and nothing more. That poetry does

these things we do not deny; what we claim is that i t does some-

thing more, that i t gives a personal fulf i l lment to the author.

13 Cf. Car. I I I , 1-6.14 A . P . ~ - 4 1 1 .15 G. c.

Fiske and M.

A·Grant, Cicero's De Oratore and Horace's

Ars Poetics, University of Wisconsin, 1929, 128.



60

I t brings him a happiness, weary with to i l perhaps, but rea l be-

cause i t is posit ive and creative. So many more might have been

inspired by Horace's picture, i f he had not neglected this ele-

ment.

"Observe order; do not g ~ o v e l or soar too high;s t ick to the usage of reasonable and well-bredpersons; be neither stupid nor shocking; abovea l l , be l ike the best of your predecessors,s t ick to the norm of the class, do not attempta perhaps impossible and certainly dangerousindividual i ty". In short the false mimesisimitat ion of previous a r t - is mixing herselfup more and more with the true mimesis, repre

sentation of nature. I f i t is not exactly truethat , as a modern prose Horace has i t , Tout estdi t , at any ra te the forms in which everytliingought to be said have long been found out. Youcannot improve on them; try to make the bestuse of them that you c a ~ . » l 6

In contrast to the words, diff ic i le est propria communia dicere,

we have Horace's endless rules which cover everything from the

number of feet in a l ine to the number of actors on the stage.

ttRed tapett, is Saintsbury•s word for i t and no matter what we

cal l i t , clearly by the time a l l of Horace's prescriptions w e ~ eobserved, there was small scope for original i ty . Men of genius -

for Rome had Lucretius and Catullus and Virgil , in addition to

Horace - might break through the web of convention to produce

original works of ar t . or rather they might so diffract the

c o ~ n o n sunlight through the lens of their mind that the old

colors seemed again fresh and new.

Borrowing their materials freely and evenlavishly, they build a Roman edif ice, often

16 Saintsbury, 227-228.



lass beautiful , perhaps, than i t s Greekoriginal , b ~ t signif icant of their owncharactar . l

61

But what is there of th is in the advice of Horace? In his own

odes, he created a Roman lyric; but no where does he explain to

the Pisos, or to u s ~ what i t is to say a tl1ing propria. Nowhere

does he t a l l them that

a man is individual by reason of very complexcharacters - to his immediate inheritance, de-rived from his own ancestors; there must beadded the nature of his race, of his riga andof his environment and of his society.

He does not advise them to widen their experience so that the

common thoughts, the common senses wil l take on new meaning, new

relationships with one another. He does not cry out with Tenny-

son's Ulysses, • I am a part of a l l that I have met." Yet a l l

experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untraveled world,

whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move." Truly, and

unfortunately, of the original i ty of experimentation Horace says

nothing except to discourage; and of the original i ty of the

personal element in poetry, he gives only the barest hin t .

Lastly, the advice which Horace gives to the young poet

skimps the lyric strangely considering that Horace himself was

the chief ly r ic is t of Rome. Many of the general precepts given

can be applied to the lyric form, precepts of unity and propor-

t ion and d e c o r u ~ . Yet of the ly r ica l impulse which certainly

17 E. E. Sikes, Roman Poetry, Menthuen, London, 1923, 8.18 Ibid. , 7.



62guided him when he wrote the "_g,uid desiderio", or the " ~dedicatum poscit Apollinem", or the Solvitur Acris, he says

nothing.l9

Probably this was because there was l i t t l e real lyr ic , as we

understand i t , a t Rome. Dedicated to ut i l i ty , and to the tasks

of civi l izat ion and empire, the Roman poet had l i t t l e time to

write the personal testimonies, or the half-hea.rd message of the

heart .

\¥.hether we widen or l imit our defini t ion oflyr ic , the fact remains that the Roman poetsrarely sing. They speak, rec i te , or even chant;but they do not commonly break out into thatecstasy of emotion which seems to demand musicas i t s medium. Horace himself, though he neverlacks the "perfect expression",.seldom r ises tothe "Imaginative intensi ty". He has no burningmoments, no absorbing passion, no th r i l l of .rapture when desire is grat i f ied, no spasm of torture in frustrated hopes. His equal 1/Iuse is

strange alike to the highest joys and the deepes t despair .20

Sikes looks for the explanation of this coldness to the environ-

ment,

An ur9an l i f e , highly ar t i f ic ia l and conventional,dominated by good tas te , shrinking from any formof eccentrici ty or excessive self-revelation,could not foster the intensi ty of p e r ~ £ n a l emotion

which overflows in lyr ica l utterance.

This certainly gives us a t least a par t ia l cause of the reason

for this lacuna in Horace's poetic theory. But what we are most

concerned with is that he did not t e l l the young poet anything

19 car . , I , xxiv, xxxi, iv .20 Sikes, 10.21 Ibid. , 11.



63

of the l y ~ i c impulse. What we ~ e g r e t is that devotion to form,

ignoring the deeper, mora moving, personal part of poetry lad

eventually to the f o ~ m a l i z a d decay of Roman poetry. Horace had

his part in that decay.No

matter that many of hisown

odes ware

fu l l of lyr ic beauty. What we a ~ a hera considering is his advice

to one who would w ~ i t a poetry; and of the meaning, the essence,.

the necessity of l y ~ i c emotion he te l ls the poet nothing.



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APPROVAL SHEET

The thesis submitted by Henry St. Clair Lavin# S.J .

has been read and approved by three members of the

Department of Class ics .

The f inal copies have been examined by the director

of the thesis and the signature which appears below verifies

the fact that any necessary changes have been incorporated,

and ti1at the thesis is now given f inal approval with refer-

ence to content, form, and mechanical accuracy.

The thesis is therefore accepted in part ia l fulfillment

of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts.

horaces picture of a poet

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