Horace ― Poetics and Politics

Today, more is known about the life and work of the great Latin poet Horace than any other writer of antiquity. In this new study of Horace, one of the formative influences on modern European literature, renowned historian V. G. Kiernan examines the distinctive personality and poetry of the poet as well as the economic and social conditions of the Italy in which he lived. Kiernan begins with a background survey of Rome and its rise to supremacy in Italy and shows how Horace--the son of a former slave--rose from humble beginnings to become a valued supporter of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, whose power he had once resisted. Kiernan reveals how a time of rapid change and civil war contributed to the work of Horace and how many of the divisions and contradictions in the social structure of that time are reflected in Horace’s own nature and in his poems. Horace’s works, including the Satires, Epodes, Odes, and Epistles, are discussed at length, as are the themes found in them such as the public panoply of government, war, religion, empire, and the private realm of friendship, wine, love, and nature. Kiernan also looks at the similarities between Horace’s age and our own, both in conflicts over class and race and in widespread religious doubts and shifts. A thoughtful work from one of this century’s most gifted scholars, this new and intensely personal approach to Horace should not be missed.

V. G. Kiernan is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of nearly twenty books, including The Lords of Human Kind and Colonial Empires and Armies 1815-1960.