CLLA 406
Horace's Odes Fall 2023
Division I

This course will explore the poetic delights of Horace’s extraordinary experiment in crafting Latin personal verse using Greek lyric forms. We will immerse ourselves in the poems’ intricate construction and examine how they engage such themes as love and friendship, landscape and memory, youth and old age, politics, and morality. At the same time, we will consider the variety of voices and perspectives within the poems and their complex relationship both to Greek and Latin poetic traditions and to Horace’s own contemporary world. The goal throughout is to investigate the literary, social, political, and philosophical dimensions of the odes, as well as their consummate poetic artistry.