Horace: Odes 1-3 and Epistles 1

Week 1

(a)Introduction to the course. The main critical debates and history of scholarship since 1900; historical and cultural background and issues of realism. Tools for reading Horatian poetry.

(b) The three-book collection and its structure. Odes 1.1, 1.38, 2.1, 2.20, 3.30.

Week 2

Horace’s adaptation of the lyric poets of archaic Greece in the Odes. Metre.

[Odes 1.10,12,14,15,16,18,20,23,27,28,30,37, 2.13, 3.4, 4.2,8,9. Use Nisbet and Hubbard's commentary (cf. esp.N/H I.xii ff.); M.Lowrie, ‘ A parade of lyric predecessors : Horace C. 1.12-1.18’,

Phoenix 49 (1995) 33-48.D.C.Feeney in Horace 2000, ed. N.Rudd (Bristol 1993), 41-63.]

Week 3

Horace’s erotic and sympotic odes. [Odes 1.5,8,13,19,23,25,30,33, 2.4,8,12, 3.7,9,10,11,26. N/H I.xvi ff; R.O.A.M.Lyne, The Latin Love Poets (Oxford, 1980) 190-238; J.Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life (London, 1985), Ch. 1-7; R.Ancona, Time and the Erotic in Horace′s Odes (1994)]

Week 4

Horace’s religious and political odes. [ Odes 1.2,6,12,14,21,35,37; 2.1,7; 3.1-6 and 14; 4.4,5,14,15. N/H I.xviiff; Fraenkel Horace 233-97; R.Seager in Horace 2000 (above) 26-33 ]

Week 5

Metapoetry and contact with other genres in Horace’s Odes. [Odes 1.1,2,6,17,26,28, 32,33,38, 2.1,12,13,16,19,20, 3.1,4,13,25,30, N/H I.xix-xx; Fraenkel 297-317; S.J.Harrison Generic Enrichment (2007) Ch. on Odes; G.Davis, Polyhymnia (Berkeley, 1991) 78-144]

Week 6

The role of the non-fictional addressee in Horace’s Odes 1-3

(a) Maecenas [Odes 1.1.,20; 2.17,20, 3.8,16,29, 4.11; P.White, CPh 86 (1991) 130-38]

(b) others [Sestius in 1.4, Plancus in 1.7, Fuscus in 1.22, Iccius in 1.29, Tibullus in 1.33,

Pollio in 2.1, Sallustius in 2.2, Dellius in 2.3]

Week 7

Epistles 1

(a) introduction to Epistles 1; key critical issues (date, real letters, conversion, career)

[Ep.1.1, 1.5, 1.13, 1.19, 1.20]

(b) Horace’s Epistles and the letter-form – Harrison 1995 at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjh/

[Ep. 1.2, 1.3, 1.4]

Week 8

Epistles 1 and philosophy: (a) the poet as teacher (b) friendship. Links to Cicero’s work

[Harrison 1995: Ep.1.1, 1.2, 1.6,

Week 9

Two problem poems: Epistles 1.7 and 1.19. Addressees common to both Epistles and Odes: generic difference in treatment? 1.4 (Tibullus), 1.5 (Torquatus), 1.9 (Septimius), 1.10 (Fuscus), 1.12 (Iccius), 1.16 (Quinctius), New addressees in the Epistles: a new generation? [1.2 and 18 Lollius, 1.3 Florus, 1.8 Celsus, 1.9 Tiberius,1.11 Bullatius, 1.17 Scaeva]

Week 10

Some interesting textual problems in Horace (e.g. Odes 1.12.35-6, 1.35.21, 3.5.13, 3.30.13-14, Ep.1.2.18). Final overview of key Horatian topics.#

Course Resources

Text used: Wickham and Garrod OCT, available at OSEO www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/

Oxford commentaries on Odes 1-3 (Nisbet/Hubbard, Nisbet/Rudd): http://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/

R.G.Mayer, Horace: Epistles 1 (Cambridge, 1994) [commentary, not yet online]

S.J.Harrison Horace (2013) – available at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjh/

S.J.Harrison (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Horace (2007) – available online at https://www.cambridge.org/core/