Horace (EN)

Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, *8 December 65 BC Venusia (Apulia), †27 November 8 BC Rome, lyric poet; alongside the epic poet and pastoral poet Virgil and the elegist Ovid, he was a leading figure of the golden age of Roman literature. The son of a freedman, he received a thorough education in Rome and, above all, in Athens. He joined Brutus’s republican forces, serving, among other roles, as a legion commander. He survived the defeat at Philippi (42 BCE) and its consequences: the confiscation of his father’s property and the necessity of working as a clerk. A turning point in his fortunes came when, through Virgil, he entered the circle of Maecenas, the patron of the arts, and also underwent a gradual shift in his political orientation. He gained the support of Octavian as a proponent of his reforms concerning customs, culture and religion; he became the “official poet” of Rome during the Augustan age.

Horace’s works falls into four genres: two purely rhetorical (sermones and epistles [epistulae]), written in hexameters and intended for recitation or reading, and two of a more lyrical nature (epodes [epodi] and carmina), composed of stanzas in various metres. The Sermones (18, dating from the 40s–30s BCE, in 2 books) were a kind of satirical discourse with a moralistic tone. The Epistles (i.e. letters, 20+3, dating from the years 23–14 BCE, in 2 books) conveyed Horace’s views – expressed in the style of a free-flowing, often ironic discourse – particularly on customs and the principles of proper and virtuous conduct in life and art, shaped by the Epicurean philosophy and moderate Stoicism. The Epodes (17, dating from the years 41–30 BCE, in a Book of Iambi) were written in seven varieties of the couplet, in which the even lines (i.e. the actual epodes, i.e. “epilogues”) were generally iambic. Their themes revolved around contemporary events in public and private lives of the people of the Romans during the transitional period; stylistically, biting satire was interwoven with lyrical passages. The Carmina (103 odes, from 31–13 BCE, in 4 books, and the Carmen saeculare, 17 BCE) not only form the core of Horace’s lyric poetry, but they also brought him recognition. Horace’s odes encompass all varieties of lyric poetry: love and friendship, social and festive, patriotic and political, philosophical and devotional, as well as a diversity of characters, tones and moods ranging from the idyllic or playful to the contemplative and sublime. Eighteen variations of the four-line Horatian stanza have been identified; he most frequently composed odes in the Alcaic (11, 11, 9, 10) and Sapphic (11, 11, 11, 5) metre, as well as Archilochian [also Archilochean] and Asclepiad [Latin: Asclepiadeus] stanzas. Although the texts of the works mention the singing or recitation of odes to the accompaniment of instruments (lyre, kithara, barbiton), it remains an open question whether they were actually performed in this way. It is, however, beyond doubt that the very metrical and intonational structure of Horace’s odes gives the impression of their distinct musicality.

Horace’s melic lyric represents a creative adaptation of the ancient Greek tradition to the Roman context; he employed Archilochus’s ionic metre in his epodes, and the Aeolic verse of Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon in his odes. Horace thus returned to his own unique interpretation of the Greek classical tradition, rejecting the currently dominant influences of the Alexandrian tradition. Horace set out his views on creativity in a letter to the Pisones (the 3rd epistle of Book 2, ca. 20 AD), known as the Ars Poetica. A poetic work, as the result of the interplay between talent (ingenium) and skill (ars), should not only be beautiful but also moving; at the same time, it should instruct, delight and stir (docere, delectare, movere), be logical and concise, and appropriate to its function and subject (suitable metre, stanza, character). Horace’s poetics, emphasising the importance of the “golden mean” and the balance between form and expression, was revived in the poetics of the Renaissance (M.G. Vida, 1527 and J. Pelletier, 1555) and Classicism (N. Boileau-Despréaux, 1674), becoming detached from times that are extremely subjective, emotional and romantic. Horatianism from the 16th to the 18th century is characterised by a Stoic attitude towards the world, introspection, a sense of detachment from one’s own experiences, and formal perfection combined with stylistic simplicity. Horace’s influence was felt above all in the form and structure of the ode and the Anacreontic song; in Polish poetry, the Horatian tradition spread through translations, adaptations and imitations by J. Kochanowski, M.K. Sarbiewski, J.A. and Z. Morsztyn, A. Naruszewicz, I. Krasicki and F. Kniaźnin.

Horace’s texts attracted the interest of composers to a rather uneven degree. There is evidence of a medieval practice of performing Horace’s odes accompanied by instruments (vielle, harp and rotte). From the time of the Renaissance onwards, odes were performed at universities and monastic colleges for educational purposes, “set to music” in two ways: monodically (see the one-voice melodies in H. Glareanus’s Dodekachordon, 1547) or homophonically (e.g. the anonymous Tu ne quaesieris from the second half of the 15th century). In the 16th century, the composition of music to Horace’s odes, as well as to the ancient-style (i.e. “quantitative”) texts of his Renaissance imitators became something of a vogue, particularly in Germany. Polyphonic arrangements of Horace’s odes, most commonly simple four-part settings, were composed by, among others: P. Tritonius (Melopoiae sive harmoniae tetracenticae super XXII genera carminum, 1507), H. Judenkünig (20 three-part odes), L. Senfl (Varia carminum genera, 1534), B. Ducis (Harmoniae in Odas P. Horatii Flacci, 1539, lost), P. Hofheimer (Harmoniae poeticae, 1539), M. Collinus (Harmoniae univocae in odas Horatianas, 1555), O. di Lasso (second epode: Beatus ille) and C. Goudimel (Q. Horatii Flacci odae omnes carminum generibus, 1555, lost). The musical transposition of the ancient metre in Goudimel’s odes inspired J.-A. Baïf with the concept of vers mesurés à l’antique. Later, only a few composers of the Classical period drew upon Horace’s texts, e.g. F.-A. Philidor (the cantata Carmen saeculare, 1779), A. Salieri, J.Ph. Kirnberger (Ode III/25) and Ch.G. Neefe (Ode 1/22). For composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, Horace is virtually non-existent; exceptions include: C. Loewe (Oden, Op. 7, 1836), P. Cornelius, Z. Stojowski (the cantata Wiosna [Le printemps], Op. 7, 1895, after the Ode IV/7) and Z. Kodály (Horatii Carmen II/10, 1935).

Literature: H. Glareanus In Quintus Horatius Flaccus “Annotatones”, Freiburg im Breisgau 1533; R. v. Liliencron Die Horazischen Metren in deutschen Kompositionen des 16. Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1887; P.-M. Masson Les odes d’Horace en musique au XVIe siècle, “La Revue Musicale” VI, 1906; H. Thomas Musical Settings of Horace’s Lyric Poems, “Proceedings of the Musical Association” XLVI, 1919/20; G. Vecchi Delle “Melopoiae” di Tritonio (1507), «Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Bologna», VIII, 1960; J. Draheim, G. Wille Horaz-Vertonungen vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Eine Anthologie, Amsterdam 1985.

L.P. Wilkinson Horace and His Lyric Poetry, Cambridge 1945, 21968; W. Strzelecki Zarys metryki łacińskiej, in: Metryka grecka i łacińska edited by M. Dłuska and W. Strzelecki, Wrocław 1959; K. Kumaniecki Liryka Horacego, “Przegląd Humanistyczny” IV, 1960; N. Collinge The Structure of Horace’s Odes, Oxford 1961; S. Commager The Odes of Horace, London 1962.