Pyrrha among Roses: Real Life and Poetic Imagination in Augustan Rome Review and discussion of Jasper Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life

Abstract

Abstract The relation between literature and life concerns both the critic and the historian. The Romantic liked poetry that had in some sense been experienced: hence Fraenkel’s remarkable dictum ‘Horace never lies’ (Horace, 456, cf. 199f.). More up-to-date theorists emphasize the autonomy of the artefact; the poor author becomes a bloodless ghost whose actions and sufferings, even if ascertainable, are thought irrelevant to his product. Scholars of a more empirical temperament will draw distinctions between one writer and another in the use they make of real life; they will not be happy with any formulation that lumps together Leshia, Cynthia, Dido, the Dark Lady, and the first Mrs Hardy. And when they tum from literary criticism to social history they understand that works of imagination sometimes provide unique insights and sometimes lay particular traps.