Epodes Meaning

A Commentary on Horace's Epodes

This is by far the most detailed commentary yet on Horace's Epodes. The line-by-line commentary on each epode is prefaced by a substantial interpretative essay which offers a reading of that poem and synthesises existing scholarship. These essays, the first of their kind, will provide essential critical orientation to undergraduates approaching the Epode-book for the first time. Moreover, the scale and density of the commentary will make it an invaluable resource for scholars of Latin poetry. A particular feature is the first in-depth treatment of the two lengthy magical Epodes 5 and 17. The author draws extensively on ancient magical texts preserved on papyrus and lead, as well as the recent flood of publications on Greek and Roman magic, to cast light on countless details in these epodes which reveal a marked familiarity on Horace's part with authentic magical belief and practice.

Horace: Odes and Epodes

This collection of recent articles provides convenient access to some of the best recent writing on Horace's Odes and Epodes. Formalist, structuralist, and historicizing approaches alike offer insight into this complex poet, who reinvented lyric at the transition from the Republic to the Augustan principate. Several classic studies in French, German, and Italian are here translated into English for the first time. A thread linking many of the pieces is the recurring debate over the performance of Horace's Odes. Fiction? Literal reality? A figurative appropriation of Greek tradition within the bookish culture of late Hellenism? Arguments both for and against gain a hearing. Michele Lowrie's introduction surveys the state of current scholarship and offers guidance on the seminal issues confronting the interpretation of Horatian lyric today. Suggestions for further reading and a consolidated bibliography open avenues for more extensive research.

Select epodes and Ars poetica