Horace's Roman Odes: A Critical Examination

Witke examines the first six odes of Horace's third book of lyrics, called the Roman Odes because of their patriotic themes and their address to Roman citizens. His goal is not to argue for some new interpretation, but place them in the context of modern literary criticism and new awareness of the dimensions and stratagems of Roman political art. The poems might seem more familiar to an Augustan audience than to a 20th-century one, he says, because the idea of civic poetry, if not repugnant to modern West readers, is at least foreign, the the lyric today is essentially private, even an overheard statement by a poet. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)