First: the assignments for this and the following two weeks (Eclogues, Monobiblos) go very closely together: they are all poetic books, and they have considerable similarities in various respects. One thing to look at as you read each of them is what a poetic book is as a genre (or perhaps meta-genre): how is writing a closely linked set of poems different from writing either a set of discrete but related poems (Catullus) or writing a single continuous text (Aeneid)? How does it work as a narrative? How does time work within the book: is it an ordered set, or a single, static structure, or both?

For reasons of the calendar, we are reading the books in the wrong order: Eclogues is the earliest, then Sermones, then Monobiblos; but since Horace and Vergil worked in close relationship to one another, there is no harm in treating the two as (more or less) simultaneous, and Propertius is much more aware of the Eclogues than he is of the Sermones. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the last poem in Horace's book clearly reflects on the Eclogues, particularly Ecl. 6.

Some questions to contemplate:

1. Who is the speaker of poem 1? How does this work as a programmatic text? What does it tell you about the nature of the book that is to follow?

2. What is the relationship between poem 4 and poem 10? Does Horace develop a serious theory of poetry, and how does it apply to his own book? What role does he see for poetry in the new age of the Triumvirate?

3. In light of that question, what is poem 5 about? Again, consider the character of the speaker. What about the style(s) of the poem? What does Horace say about the famous people on the journey, and how does it relate to what you expect him to say?

4. Now think about the relationship between 4 and 6 as autobiographical narrative (and how they relate to 5). Why is Horace writing satire?

5. How do the poems in this book fit your preconception of "satire"? What is this book about, anyway?

Bibliography:

The most useful general introduction to the recent criticism of the Satires is:

K. Freudenburg, The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (Princeton, 1993)

There is also a useful bibliographical essay in:

S. Braund, Roman Verse Satire. Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics, no. 23 (Oxford, 1992)

Two recent articles that treat Horatian satire from very different points of view are:

E. Gowers, "Horace, Satires 1.5: an inconsequential journey" PCPS 39 (1993) 48-66

J. Henderson, "Be alert (your country needs lerts): Horace, Satires 1.9" PCPS 39 (1993) 67-93

 I will put these in 617 Hamilton, together with my own (forthcoming) article, "Dreaming of Quirinus".