LAT 633Greek and Roman Identities in the Lyric Poetry of Horace

This course investigates the representation of Greek (and other) culture in the Odes of Horace. We shall examine how the Roman perception of earlier and contemporary Greek cultural values is manipulated in Horace's poetry in order to articulate the nature of his lyric poetry, as well as social, political, and aesthetic values. By careful consideration of a wide range of poems, and by comparing them to the Greek models of Pindar, Sappho, Alcaeus, and Archilochus, we shall determine Horace's representation of the unique as well as derivative characteristic of Augustan society and literature.