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Extract
Horace never uses epistulae of these poems; but seems to include them in the term sermones. However, evidence of MSS. and scholiasts is unanimous that the title given by the author was Epistulae. The title taken together with the poet’s inclusion of them among the sermones points to their being a continuation of the Satires in a new form. The essence of the Satires was that they were sermo, but it was difficult for the poet to make plausible the setting in which the conversation took place; so most of the Satires have no addressee. The invention of the letter as a literary form was a perfect solution to that difficulty, and it gave the poet opportunity for the swiftly changing tones and the associative connections of ideas which are the great virtues of the style of the Satires.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1972
Footnotes
1
Editions: E. C. Wickham (Oxford, 1891): Orelli–Baiter–Mewes4 II (Berlin, 1892); A. S. Wilkins (London, 1892): Kiessling–Heinze6 (Berlin, 1957)—with extensive bibliographies by E. Burck. The best modern introduction to Epist. i is M. J. McGann, Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Collection Latomus C: Brussels, 1969)— with a useful bibliography. E. Courbaud, Horace, sa vie et sa pensée à l’époque des épîtres: étude sur le premier livre (Paris, 1914), gives a careful analysis of each Epistle, but is generally naïve in its treatment. Fraenkel (Horace 308–63 and 383–99) discusses many Epistles;but his approach is close to that of Courbaud, and, in spite of excellent interpretations, this is probably the least successful part of the book. C. Becker, Das Spätwerk des Horaz (Göttingen, 1963), has many good observations, but everything is subordinated to demonstrating a somewhat monolithic consistency in all the later works.