THE POETRY OF CRITICISM This page intentionally left blank THE POETRY OF CRITICISM Horace, Epistles II and Ars Poetica Ross S. Kilpatrick THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA PRESS First published by The University of Alberta Press Athabasca Hall Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2E8 Copyright © The University of Alberta Press 1990 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Kilpatrick, Ross S. (Ross Stuart), 1934- The poetry of criticism Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-88864-145-7 (bound). — ISBN 0-88864-I46-X (pbk.) 1. Horace. Epistulae. 2. Horace. Ars poetica. I. Title. PA6393-E8K55 1990 871'.01 089-091310-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Typesetting by The Typeworks, Vancouver, British Columbia Printed by Hignell Printing Ltd., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada For Suzzanne This page intentionally left blank C O N T E N TS Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii 1 The Epistle to Augustus 1 EPISTLE 2.1 2 The Epistle to Florus 15 EPISTLE 2.2 3 The Epistle to the Pisos 32 ARS POETICA 4 The Literary Epistles: Pattern and Coherence 55 Translations: TO AUGUSTUS 59 TO FLORUS 66 TO THE PISOS 72 NOTES ON THE TEXT AS TRANSLATED 84 Abbreviations 87 Notes 89 Selected Bibliography 111 Index: ANCIENT AUTHORS 117 GENERAL INDEX 119 This page intentionally left blank P R E F A CE THE ARS POETICA, or the Epistle to the Pisos, is Horace's longest poem by far: 476 lines. The Epistle to Augustus (270) and Epistle to Florus (216) both fall short of the lengthy Satire 2.3 (326), but are still long poems by Horace's standards. This makes a total of 962 lines or about the length of the Aeneid's longer books: a convenient length for a papyrus scroll. The critical bibliography on these three poems is enormous. There are 23 pages of titles overall in Charles Brink's three volumes of Horace on Poetry (1963, 1971, 1982), which he describes as "selective." The sur- vey by Walter Kissel of Heidelberg, "Horaz 1936-1975: Eine Gesamtbibliographie," Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt II, 31.3 (1981), 1403-1558, includes eight pages of titles on Epistles II (1521-28). The same volume also includes a new critical survey by Francesco Sbordone, "La poetica oraziana alla luce degli studi piu ecenti" (1866—1920). Nor is interest waning in the probable sources of Horace's views on poetic criticism; see, for example, H.J. Mette, "Neoptolemus von Parion," RM CXIII (1980), 1-24. Kissel prints two pages of bibliographies alone (1411-12). Representative of earlier surveys are A. Viola's two volumes, L'Arte Poetica di Orazio nella Critica Italiana e Straniera (Napoli, 1901, 1906). The appearance of Brink's third and final volume of Horace on Poetry