Horace's poetic inspiration and its unity in his works (summary) (original) (raw)

This book focuses on the terms and issues of poetic inspiration in Horace's literary works. The interpretation of these terms and issues allows us to identify a unity in the way the poet treats the matter of inspiration throughout his work. In addition to the three basic research directions for his poetic inspiration: the biographical-historical, the literary, and the aesthetic, we focus on philosophy which we believe plays an important role in explaining Horace's poetic motives. From this point of view, inspiration as literary experience, not just as literary expression, is a new dimension of the poet's perception of life in a literary work. This view is interpreted by the function of ἀναζωγράφησις in Aristotelian and Stoic thought. This book offers an answer to the question: 'At what degree, and on what level, do the traditional elements of poetic inspiration play a functional role and contribute to the presence of Horace's poetic "ego" in the process of his writing?' The way Horace treats traditional sources of inspiration is mostly influenced by intellectual and ethical interventions dominant in the literary text. Our research has indicated that Horace's motivation for writing does not depend on the conventional use of inspirational matters at either a literary or a meta-literary level. It is the poet's own mentality and its process which is dominant in Horace's verse collections. It is his own presence and meditation as a source of inspiration that is common in many senses in all of his work. This book examines the issue of inspiration in the different verse collections of Horace (Sermones, Iambi, Carmina I-III, Carmina IV with Carmen Saeculare, and Epistulae). The titles of the subchapterscharacteristic phrases or verses taken from the poet's workare the keys for interpreting the verbal depiction of Horace's poetic inspiration. These poetic phrases or verses also show the essential internal connection between Horace's will to write poetry and the functional role that this motive has for the thematic unity of his work. References to Horace's poetic inspiration, whether conventional or original, are embodied in the context and play a role in explaining the system of correlations that allow the poet to perceive real and literary matters and ultimately to write poetry about them. Traditional key words of inspiration such as Muse (or related deities), enthusiasm, ingenium and ars, are examined for their role and function in the poetic context from which other, new impulses/motives arise that actuate the poet to his task, i.e. pudor, sensus, mens, consilium, animus, consultum, integritas, as well as the stoic terms προαίρεσις and προκόπτων. Specifically in Sermones, where the satiric persona focuses on melius vivere (Serm. 1. 4. 135) and melius scribere (Serm. 1. 10. 47), the poet's insania and rare uses of invocation for poetic inspiration are not the satirist's bestacknowledged impulses. Even ingenium, the most accepted poetic impulse, with or without ars, becomes in fact a gift, a characterization given by others (docti amici) as a kind of recognition. What Horace admits as a source of inspiration is pudor and his own sensus in his poetic attendance (instead of being inanis, Serm. 1. 4. 77) or insanus poeta (Serm. 2. 3. 1-8) with a fervent ingenium (Serm. 1. 10. 70-1). Pudor is also related to the way the poet chooses to write satire: with consilium proprium , which is also different from ingenium because it focuses on reasoning (mens, animus).