Shattering tradition: A rejection of analysis by genre in Horace’s Ars poetica

Abstract

The following paper undertakes a critical review and examination ofthe various attempts over the last century and a half of scholarship inClassical Philology to categorize that most singular work of Horace,the Ars poetica. Commentators and critics of the poem haveendeavoured to include the work of the Augustan poet within variouspre-determined — somewhat tendentious — generic categories,including: the didactic treatise, the verse letter, the literary epistle,the didactic poem, and the sermo. Through critiquing theseapproaches I shall argue that the Ars, whether through form orsubject, manages to subvert the criteria of these generic boundaries,and locates itself within a unique territory. Apart from addressing theproblems involved in classifying the Ars, this paper also tacklessome other general concerns of generic analysis in ClassicalPhilology.