Craft and Concern
Modern readers commonly base their reading and reception of Horace on two problematic assumptions: first, that he is an ‘‘artist’’ in the mod-ern sense, one who operates in obedience to a single, universal guiding ideal of poetry; and second, that he explicitly lays out this ideal in his poetry for the aesthetic edification of his readers.1 It is certainly true that when Horace turns to reflect on what poetry is, how it should be written, and what it represents, he treats these subjects with such care and apparent earnestness that it is easy on the surface to accept his state-ments as representing the genuine declaration of his actual literary prin-ciples.2However, we must constantly remind ourselves that Horace’s self-presentation is above all a poetic fiction, that he freely manipulates, alters, and abandons individual facets of this portrayal as it becomes useful or necessary. To the extent that he argues about the nature of poetry and articulates seemingly ideal visions of the poet’s role in both private and public contexts, he does so primarily in order to present himself and his works to his audience in the best possible critical light.
After all, as we observed in chapter two, Horace separately addresses many different rings of this audience throughout his poetry, marking each such ring with unique characteristics as well as a different style of interaction with himself; in this way, he projects his self-image against a variegated background of different social relationships. In similar fashion Horace offers an array of what he presents as personal statements about his craft and identity as a poet but forges from them not one but a series of separate visions of poetry and its significance. He thereby forces us to acknowledge that his proclaimed ideals of poetic composition exist as essentially self-conscious creations and, as such, are not necessarily rep-resentative of his actual beliefs. Although what Horace chooses to say about poetry and specifically about himself as a poet does not necessarily offer us a secure insight into his true conception of himself or his art, his
Craft and Concern
poetic treatments of his craft do represent elaborate and fascinating ex-ercises in actively defensive self-presentation—and constitute a further source of evidence for the way in which he intended his situation in all its aspects to be perceived.
. Poetry as Practical Tool
This issue is best approached in terms of the three main conceptions of poetry that Horace articulates throughout his literary corpus.We shall see that although each might initially appear to represent the poet’s genu-ine views, internal contradictions and a certain level of incompatibility between his different presented ideals prevent us from accepting any par-ticular one at face value. First among these conceptions is that of poetry as a practical tool for use in his personal affairs. On several occasions, Horace deploys what he presents as intimate and deeply personal recollections in order to introduce the somewhat unromantic notion that poetry, for him, is nothing more than a mechanism for getting through life.3In ac-cordance with this model Horace suggests that he exercises his poetic skills not in the pursuit of truth or beauty but simply in order to deal with all the difficulties and other small events of his daily existence—
a surprising statement, one whose validity he carefully encourages us to question even as he advances it.
If we distinguish the historical order of publication of Horace’s works from the fictional, ‘‘autobiographical’’ order that can be reconstructed from his various anecdotes and personal remarks, we can see that accord-ing to the latter, Horace portrays this resolutely practical vision of poetry as being virtually the earliest one he embraced. In Epistles ., Horace recalls the end of his halcyon days as a young student in Athens, when he risked and lost everything by joining the Republican cause in ..
(–):
dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato civilisque rudem belli tulit aestus in arma Caesaris Augusti non responsura lacertis.
unde simul primum dimisere Philippi decisis humilem pennis inopemque paterni et laris et fundi, paupertas impulit audax ut versus facerem. sed quod non desit habentem
Poetry as Practical Tool
quae poterunt umquam satis expurgare cicutae, ni melius dormire putem quam scribere versus?
But troubled times dislodged me from that pleasant spot, and the surge of civil war dragged me in, inexperienced though I was, to carry weapons that would be no match for the arms of Caesar Augustus. As soon as Philippi sent me away from there—
cast down with my wings clipped, and deprived of my father’s home and estate—daring poverty drove me to compose poetry.
But now I have all that I need; there is no hemlock treatment that could cure me sufficiently, if I were so mad as to think it better to spend my time writing verse instead of sleeping.
With a convincing show of honest confession, Horace casts himself as admitting that he only turned to poetry out of desperation, when he was dogged by poverty and isolation in the aftermath of Philippi: paupertas impulit . . . ut versus facerem. By describing himself as having become inops as a direct result of losing his paternal inheritance of the family house and country estate, he emphasizes that in becoming a full-time poet he had made a calculated response to specific practical circumstances—to wit, the urgent need to make a living of some kind.4Now that he is happily secure, Horace suggests, he has no further interest in composing verse seriously; indeed, he would be mad to do so ().
Considered strictly in terms of the poem’s immediate context, this highly businesslike conception of poetry and its usefulness is offered up as Horace’s personal view, the vision that motivates him as a poet. But the claim is polemical and transparently dubious, being made primarily in order to explain to Florus why he hasn’t sent him any letters or poems recently.5 The hollowness of the assertion is further indicated by the fact that, according to the aforementioned ‘‘autobiographical’’ order of events, Horace had already begun to produce poetry while in Athens, writing poems such as certain of the Epodes for the entertainment of his fellow students.6It also seems directly to contradict his exultant decla-ration in Satires .—released in .., after his receipt of the Sabine estate—that ‘‘dives, inops . . . quisquis erit vitae scribam color,’’ (rich or poor, no matter what sort of life I lead, I will write []). Thus, serious qualifications of Horace’s paupertas argument begin to arise when one reads his statements in the light of what can be determined elsewhere regarding his circumstances and views.7
Craft and Concern
The complex ramifications of such a treatment cohere oddly with the picture Horace gives in Epistles ., where he likens his book to a pros-titute, eager to put itself up for sale to one reader after another in the booksellers’ district (–):
Vertumnum Ianumque, liber, spectare videris, scilicet ut prostes Sosiorum pumice mundus.
odisti clavis et grata sigilla pudico;
paucis ostendi gemis et communia laudas, non ita nutritus. fuge quo descendere gestis! . . . carus eris Romae, donec te deserat aetas;
contrectatus ubi manibus sordescere vulgi coeperis . . .
You seem, my book, to be looking toward the bookshops at Ver-tumnus and Janus—it’s obvious that you want to be polished up by the pumice stones of the Sosius brothers, and go up for sale.
You hate the library’s keys and seals, so dear to chaste books. It makes you unhappy to be shown off only to a few men, and you like going around in public. You certainly weren’t raised this way.
Well, go ahead! Run off to the level you’re so eager to sink to! . . . You will be well loved in Rome, until your youth deserts you;
when you have started to grow soiled, and all worn out by the hands of the mob.
This unsympathetic characterization of the commercialization of his poetry is the dark reverse, as it were, of paupertas impulit audax ut versus facerem.8And yet, here too the essential notion of treating poetry as a per-sonal commodity or useful tool appears to go unchallenged. For however scornfully he may disown his book for its shamelessness, Horace goes on to acknowledge its forthcoming wide circulation and even calls on it to spread word of the poet himself (–):
cum tibi sol tepidus pluris admoverit auris, me libertino natum patre et in tenui re maiores pinnas nido extendisse loqueris, ut quantum generi demas virtutibus addas;
me primis urbis belli placuisse domique . . .
When the warm sun brings you a wider audience, you will say that I was ‘‘the freedman’s son’’ and that from poverty I rose above
Poetry as Practical Tool
my station, and spread wings larger than my nest. That way, you will add to your merits what you take from your birth: that I was pleasing to the first men of Rome, the elite in war and at home . . . It is important to note that the personal triumph Horace wishes his book to celebrate is not, first and foremost, that of his achievements in literature but of his successful social advancement. The crucial point being made here is that Horace is a totally self-made man, who raised himself from poverty and obscurity to occupy a lofty and honored place in Roman society. That he has accomplished this precisely through the writing of poetry means that his book will serve as a doubly effec-tive form of self-advertisement.9How this advertisement is received, of course, depends on whether one sees Horace as a self-promoting arriviste or as an established poet making an arch and ironic comment about the social prominence his craft has won for him. Thus, the rings of audience reappear in their double role as subjects and recipients of Horace’s work.
The message one gets from Epistles . and . is that poetic com-position is not always undertaken strictly in the spirit of ars gratia artis, but that books of poetry are sometimes written in order to earn a living or to enhance the social reputation of their authors. Thus, poetry here remains an important aspect of Horace’s self-image only insofar as it is what enabled him to achieve his worldly success. Poetry is presented as being largely practical in its purpose and application—a specific means to an end, not an end in itself.10By advancing such a view, even with quali-fications, Horace distinguishes himself from poets of earlier generations.
We might compare this portrait of Horace as a resourceful individual surviving and succeeding through his efforts with poets such as Luci-lius and Catullus, who give a far less complicated impression of well-off gentlemen amusing themselves and their friends with their keen obser-vations about the events and inhabitants of the elite world they com-fortably occupied as their birthright all their lives. Horace, by contrast, operates in a far more variegated world of potential responses.
Horace places a similar emphasis on the personal utility of poetry when he projects a picture of his verses as being his individual paternal in-heritance and his private method of making sense of the world around him.11 On the most basic level, this formulation springs as above from what Horace presents as highly intimate revelation; he introduces it as part of his defense against criticisms he claims to have sustained for sup-posedly making ad hominem attacks in his work. In seeking excuse from
Craft and Concern
the charge, he invokes memories of his boyhood, with an affectionate portrait of his father’s customary moral instruction (Sat...–):
. . . liberius si dixero quid, si forte iocosius, hoc mihi iuris cum venia dabis. insuevit pater optimus hoc me, ut fugerem exemplis vitiorum quaeque notando.
If I have said anything too freely, perhaps too jokingly, you will indulgently give me this right. My excellent father inculcated this habit in me, pointing out all faults by means of cautionary examples, so that I might avoid such faults myself.
The image of Horace fondly remembering his father’s good training is a pleasing one, and it is furthermore intimately connected to questions of the function and proper application of satire: according to this model, satire becomes a form of moral observation, prompted by a sense of grati-tude and filial responsibility.12At the same time, it remains a personal tool, something that Horace uses in his daily life in order to record and evaluate his thoughts and actions (–):
. . . neque enim, cum lectulus aut me porticus excepit, desum mihi: ‘‘rectius hoc est;
hoc faciens vivam melius; sic dulcis amicis
occurram; hoc quidam non belle; numquid ego illi imprudens olim faciam simile?’’ haec ego mecum compressis agito labris; ubi quid datur oti, illudo chartis . . .
For when I recline on my couch or walk in the colonnade, I do not fail myself: ‘‘this is preferable; by doing that I will lead a better life; this way I will meet good friends; that wasn’t nice, what that man did; can it be that I would ever do something foolish like that man?’’ I keep my mouth shut, and go over these things by myself.Then, when I have some free time, I fool around with my notebooks.
A remarkable self-image thus underlies this account: Horace’s con-tinual examination of others’ behavior is undertaken purely for his own reference. In both domestic and public settings (lectulus aut porticus) he keeps his thoughts to himself (compressis agito labris); and thus the Satires
Poetry as Practical Tool
are strictly private—a collection of verses he happened to jot down in his spare time (illudo chartis). Such a formulation might initially appear to be credible and persuasive, thanks to its basis in convincingly intimate reminiscence. It certainly stands in its own right as an example of Hora-tian self-presentation that is engaging and appealingly human.13On the other hand, Horace himself quickly alters the image by describing this sort of exercise as ‘‘ex vitiis unum, cui si concedere nolis, multa poeta-rum veniat manus’’ (one of my little faults—and if you don’t concede it to me, a huge crowd of poets will show up [Sat...–]). And in any case, his various audiences are being allowed to read these supposedly private notes. The introduction of this image of a band of fellow poets who engage in the same practice—for Horace acknowledges that he is one of them, ‘‘nam multo plures sumus’’ (for we are by far the majority [])—thus serves to return us to the larger context of an overarching ideal of poetry (more specifically satire) as a common tool for observing and speaking to the surrounding world.14
Thus recast, the sage advice of Horace’s father takes on the outward appearance of a guiding principle—a model for both poet and discerning reader to follow.15But Horace does not offer this as a universally appli-cable model of poetry throughout his works. Given that it comes as part of a defense against supposed public attacks, it is intended to apply only to the specific context of the Satires and is quietly dropped without com-ment when the nature and requirecom-ments of Horace’s poetry change.16 In its immediate context this concept of satire is plausibly offered up as Horace’s true belief, but other genres suggest other poetic ideals.17This raises an important point about Horace’s overall treatment of poetry as a practical tool: although his presentation of the concept initially comes across as convincing and sincere, he does not purport to extend its ap-plication to poets or poetry in general.
Indeed, elsewhere Horace tacitly abandons the notion that he under-takes to write poetry for the aforementioned reasons—a notion that he introduced in the first place. In the Odes, for instance, the exigencies of poverty go unmentioned as a possible motive for writing. Instead, as Horace embarks on his great poetic endeavor, it suits his immediate pur-pose of self-presentation to assert that he writes in a spirit of exhilarating joy and pride, driven by divine inspiration (.– and .):18
me doctarum hederae praemia frontium dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus
Craft and Concern nympharumque leves cum satyris chori secernunt populo . . .
Ivy, the reward of poets’ brows, joins me with the lofty gods.
The cool grove and the light bands of nymphs and satyrs set me apart from the people.
quo me, Bacche, rapis tui
plenum? quae nemora aut quos agor in specus, velox mente nova? . . .
nil parvum aut humili modo,
nil mortale loquar. dulce periculum est, o Lenaee, sequi deum
cingentem viridi tempora pampino.
Bacchus, where are you taking me, filled with your power? What groves or what caves am I being driven into, made swift with new thoughts? . . . I will say nothing small or in a humble strain, I will say nothing that is mortal. It is a sweet danger, Lenaean Bacchus, to follow the god who binds his temples with the green vine-leaves.
Naturally, what Horace says in the Odes about the composition of poetry is shaped by consideration of the magnitude of his achievement in lyric; for him to claim that paupertas led him to write the Odes would have seemed extremely inappropriate, and even absurd. By contrast, the satiric and epistolary forms are well suited to the seeming revelation of homely or confessional detail, and as a result, personal revelations form the basis of much of Horace’s discussion there.19For this reason, Horace elects in Epistles . and . to characterize the craft of poetry as the practical mechanism of personal survival and social self-enhancement.
Each situation and genre demands a different approach if the overall poetic self-presentation is to be effective, since his audience (even when composed of the same individuals and drawn from the same ring) will carry different generic and thematic expectations in each case. To pro-duce aesthetically pleasing verse ( pulchra poemata), as Horace observes in Satires ..–,
et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe iocoso, defendente vicem modo rhetoris atque poetae, interdum urbani, parcentis viribus atque extenuantis eas consulto.
Poetry as Professional Activity
You need a manner of speech which is now sad, now playful, sustaining the role now of an orator, now of a poet. Sometimes you need the style of a wit, who saves his strength and conserves it on purpose.
By forcing us to notice the inherent variations of his proclaimed poetic ideals as he moves from poem to poem and work to work, Horace points out that all is not as it may seem. His statements are not cast as
By forcing us to notice the inherent variations of his proclaimed poetic ideals as he moves from poem to poem and work to work, Horace points out that all is not as it may seem. His statements are not cast as