Horace: Satires and Epistles

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The Roman poet Horace (65 - 8 BC) presents many of his most probing, scathing, and hilarious reflections on poetry and society in his Satires and Epistles. The most distinctive feature of these poems is the vivid self-exploration of the poet himself, a figure carefully crafted from literary and philosophical precedents. The Satires and Epistles offer an extended meditation on freedom and dependency in Roman literature, politics, and daily life at the transition from Republic to Empire. In this course, we will read a selection of these poems, with attention to genre, style, diction, and meter.