Greek Iambic and Lyric in Horace

Abstract

This chapter discusses Quintus Horatius Flaccus's appropriation and standardization of Greek meters, his allusions to iambic/lyric ideas and imagery, and how the Augustan poet blended and fused his disparate influences within his poetry. Archilochus and Alcaeus were indeed Horace's primary inspirations, but Horace saw himself as belonging to a broader group of archaic poets. The commentators listed different metrical systems used in Horace's iambic and lyric poetry. Horace there appears to be emphasizing his mastery of the trimeter-dimeter epodic form before branching out into other meters. In his Art of Poetry , Horace notes that the iambus is particularly appropriate to anger, likening it to a weapon. Horace's adaptation of his archaic models involves a series of creative blends. To turn to the blending of Hellenistic poetics with archaic forms: it used to be thought by some that Horace rejected the Callimachean aesthetics of Propertius and his peers and sought to return to archaic models alone.