horaceatolli.pbworks.com
Horace at OLLI, Fall 2020
Quintus Horatius Flaccus
8 December, 65 bce- 27 November, 8 bce
Horace is the third of the poetic triumvirate of the Golden Age of Roman Literature, along with Vergil and Ovid. He authored four main collections: two books of Satires, a book of Epodes, four books of Odes, and two of Epistles. There are two stand alone works, the Carmen Saeculare (the Hymn for the Age) and the Ars Poetica.
In this workshop we will read through his work starting with the earliest written and following more or less chronologically. Since I don’t know what your response (and frankly, my response) will be to each work, the corpus is not neatly parceled out, but each session’s “assignment” will be agreed upon and posted as soon as we finish the previous.
There are many legitimate translations of Horace’s works, and we will address them in our first session. There is also a set of contemporary renditions by the indefatigable A.S. Kline available for free on-line (see below). I have not been able to find the complete works in one volume in anything like modern English. If you want to dive in and order a text, we will start with the Satires (in Latin Sermones), move on to the Epodes, then the Odes and finally the Epistles.You best bet to buy right now are the Oxford World's Classics editions (Satires and Epistles in one volume, Odes and Epodes in the other.)
Each session’s work will be posted below with the latest at the top of the list. If you have questions or concerns not addressed when were were together, please feel free to contact me at rudedonatus@gmail.com, 631-246-5364 (leave a message if I don’t pick-up).
All the works for the 2021 semester are here
Horace Epistles Book 1.doc
Horace Epistles, book 2.doc
Horace Odes bk 4.doc
All Horace's work is found here in translation by A.S. Kline
Horace background discussion
Roman Satire
Simpl(istic?) contrast between Roman Stoicism and Epicureanism
Workshop notes
March 8
Read Odes Book 4
We will also finish our discussion of the Ars Poetica
February 22
The Ars Poetica, as called the Epistle to the Pisones
This link will lead to a serviceable translation with extensive, clickable notes
February 15
We covered Epistle Book 2, number 1
Next week we will do the Ars Poetica, as called the Epistle to the Pisones
This link will lead to a serviceable translation with extensive, clickable notes
February 8
We covered the rest of the Epistles in Book 1: Epistle 1 of book next week
February 1
Epistles 1: 1, 2, 19, 20, 17, 18) We looked closely at # 1 and #20
Discussed the general themes of this book: Philosophy; places; friendship; old age/aging
Next time we will look at the rest of the book--esp. #16, seeing how those themes are woven throughout.
January 25
Epistles
Epistles, Bk I: 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13
Please read at least Epistles 1: 1,2 19, 20, 17, 18 for next week
November 23: Book 3, 21-30
November 16: Book 3, 11-20. Not very extensive so we can spend more time of them individually.
Odes 3 11-20 verum.doc
O fons Bandusiae
Thompson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2mYAfl5Us&list=RD3x2mYAfl5Us&start_radio=1&t=32
Hahn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG9UYLweop8
November 9 : Book 3: 1-10, esp. 1,2,3,4,6
https://poets.org/poem/memory-w-b-yeats
November 2
Odes, Book 2
We will pay special attention to the pairs. You might want to pick a pair or two and track the differences between the two approaches:
4-5 lighter poems
8-9 erotic subjects
13-14 death and the underworld
14-15 advice against luxury
19-20 imaginative fantasy about immortals
Eheu fugaces https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wws_WpBG1o
Eheu fugaces techno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWWwsZC-x6s
October 26
Finish Odes, Book 1. Pay esp. attention to 22, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38
Concerning our discussion of the index librorum, Catholics were not alone in censoring material. Here is a question and answer about Horace's availability at Harvard, a decidedly not Catholic institution:
(a) Question: where on the Harvard campus can you read these lines of Horace (from Odes 1.13):
felices ter et amplius
quos inrupta tenet copula nec malis
divulsus querimoniis
suprema citius solvet amor die
("happy three times and more
those held by an unbroken bond, whose love
sundered by no bitter strife
will not release them before life's last day")?
(b) From the preface to an edition of Horace published for Harvard undergraduates in 1806:
"This edition of Horace was undertaken for the use of students at Harvard University. The consideration of the pernicious tendency, in a moral view, which certain obscene expressions and allusions of this otherwise excellent author might have, induced the governors of the University to procure the publication of this expurgated edition, as a substitute for that, hitherto used, which is entire. An expurgated edition, printed at London 1784, ... in which every indecent passage appears to have been carefully suppressed, has been taken for its model. ... The punctuation also is on a plan, somewhat different from that, generally received; the colon being altogether neglected. The reasons for this departure from the common method of pointing [i.e., punctuating] were, that the use of the colon is very unsettled and irregular, and that the other three points are sufficient, it is apprehended, to answer every purpose of correct punctuation." [The authors of this preface seem to have been as fond of the comma as they were hostile to the colon, and also to have been as worried about improper punctuation as they were about loose morals.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX_Y15cbgxQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akCLUschaKI
diver's tomb: http://www.paestum.org.uk/museum/classical/
October 19
Odes, Book 1: 1-14 (some of the most renowned of Horace's work)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_works_of_Horace/First_Book_of_Odes#cite_note-7
An article about translating Horace. https://www.harvardreview.org/content/getting-horace-across/
What slim youngster soaked in perfumes
Is hugging you now, Pyrrha on a bed of roses
Deep in your lovely cave? For whom
Are you tying up your blonde hair?
You’re so elegant and simple.
--David West, 1997
Who's the slip of a boy in a large wreath of rose
Drenched with liquid pomade pressing you, Pyrrha, so
Under welcoming arbor?
For whom braid you that auburn hair
Unobstrusively chic?
--Guy Lee, 1998
Pyrrha, what slender youngster, soaked with perfume, holds you in his arms, lying on a heap of roses in a delightful grotto? For whom are you tying up your flaxen hair, so simple, so elegant?
--Niall Rudd, 2004
What slender boy has you bedded on roses
And, oiled and scented, urges you on
In some pleasant cave. Pyrrha?
For whom do you tie back your blonde hair?
Voguishly simple.
--Stanley Lombardo, 2018
So who’s that pretty boy, soaked in cologne,
grinding against you in the rose bushes
near that pleasant grotto, Pyrrha?
Is it for him that you do up your blonde hair,stylishly simple?
--M Beck
What well-heeled knuckle-head, straight from the unisex
Hairstylist and bathed in “Russian Leather,”
Dallies with you these late summer days, Pyrrha,
In your expensive sublet? For whom do you
Slip into something simple by, say, Gucci?
-- Anthony Hecht
1.5 quis multa gracilis choir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_oyvIfaUcQ
1.9 Vides alta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITIF55d9VMk
1.9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwaQQc0PQSY
1.11Carpe diem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzrQuSwlEIk
1.11 Ad Leuconoen, choir and orch; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNRC0tsLWYY
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:8919560
October 12
Epodes 11-17
October 5
Epodes 1-10
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpodesAndCarmenSaeculare.php
http://www.negenborn.net/catullus/
https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/pdf/eph175b2445576.pdf
Paris-Graham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQTdCKLxBh8
September 28
Satires, Book 2 (there are 8)
September 21
Satire 1.1.doc
September 14
Read Satires, Book 1--pay attention to the change of tone or even direction as you go through each satire. Can we uncover a definition of "satire" from these 10 examples?
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