A Sense of an Ending: Closure in Horace’s Ars poetica (453–76)
Keywords:
Horace. Ars poetica. Ending. Closure. Closure theory.Abstract
The closure of Horace’s Ars poetica – a central poem of the Augustan age and an important contribution to the canon of world literature in general –, has received surprisingly little scholarly attention until very recently. In this article, I will first ask what precisely happens in the final passage of the Ars poetica (lines 453–76); I will then seek to interpret the passage in its function as the ending of the poem; and finally, it will be necessary to discuss how this ending contributes to the overall meaning of the work.References
Barchiesi, A. 1997. “Endgames: Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15 and Fasti 6,” in Roberts, Dunn and Fowler 1997. pp. 181–208.
Brink, Ch. O. 1971. Horace on Poetry II: The Ars poetica. Cambridge.
Brink, Ch. O. 1982. Horace on Poetry III: Epistles Book 2: The Letters to Augustus and Florus. Cambridge.
Brooks, P. 1984. Reading for the Plot. Design and Intention in Narrative. Cambridge.
Carmignani, M. 2013. “Poeta vesanus, recitator acerbus. Die auf Horaz basierende Karikierung des Eumolpus in Petronius, Sat. 118,” RhM 156. pp. 27–46.
Citroni, M. 2009. “Horace’s Ars Poetica and the Marvellous,” in Ph. Hardie, ed., Paradox and the Marvellous in the Augustan Literature and Culture. Oxford. pp. 19–40.
Eco, U. 1962. Opera aperta. Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee. Milano.
Fairclough, H. R. 1991. Horace. Satires, Epistles and Ars poetica. [First published 1926.] Cambridge, Mass. and London.
Farrell, J. 2007. “Horace’s Body, Horace’s Books,” in S. J. Heyworth, ed., Classical Constructions. Papers in Memory of Don Fowler, Classicist and Epicurean. pp. 174–93.
Fowler, D. P. 1989. “First Thoughts on Closure. Problems and Prospects,” MD 22. pp. 75–122.
Fowler, D. P. 1994. “Postmodernism, Romantic Irony, and Classical Closure,” in I. J. F. de Jong and J. P. Sullivan, eds., Modern Critical Theory and Classical Literature. Leiden, New York and Köln. pp. 231–56.
Fowler, D. P. 1997. “Second Thoughts on Closure,” in Roberts, Dunn and Fowler 1997. pp. 3–22.
Fowler, P. 1997. “Lucretian Conclusions,” in Roberts, Dunn and Fowler 1997. pp. 112–38.
Frischer, B. 1991. Shifting Paradigms. New Approaches to Horace’s Ars Poetica. Atlanta, Georgia.
Frye, N. 1971 [1953]. “The Mythos of Winter: Irony and Satire,” in R. Paulson, ed., Satire: Modern Essays in Criticism. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.). pp. 233–48.
Fuhrmann, M. 1992. Die Dichtungstheorie der Antike. Aristoteles – Horaz – ‘Longin’. Eine Einführung (2nd ed.). Darmstadt.
Geue, T. 2014. “Editing the Opposition: Horace’s Ars Politica,” MD 72. pp. 143–72.
Gowers, E. 2012. Horace: Satires Book I. Cambridge/New York.
Grethlein, J. 2016. “Minding the middle in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica: false closure, triangular foils and self-reflection,” Classical Quarterly 66. pp. 316–35.
Grewing, F. F., Acosta-Hughes, B. and Kirichenko, A. 2013. The Door Ajar. False Closure in Greek and Roman Literature and Art. Heidelberg.
Gumbrecht, H. U. 2014. Our Broad Present. Time and Contemporary Culture. New York.
Hajdu, P. 2014a. “Horace’s Ars poetica as Pure Poetry,” MD 72. pp. 85–96.
Hajdu, P. 2014b. “The Mad Poet in Horace’s Ars Poetica,” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 41. pp. 28–42.
Hardie, Ph. 1997a. “Closure in Latin Epic,” in Roberts, Dunn and Fowler 1997. pp. 139–62.
Hardie, Ph. 1997b. “Questions of authority: the invention of tradition in Ovid Metamorphoses 15,” in Th. Habinek and A. Schiesaro, eds., The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge. pp. 182–98.
Hardie, Ph. 2009. Lucretian Receptions. History, The Sublime, Knowledge. Cambridge.
Hardie, Ph. 2014. “The Ars poetica and the Poetics of Didactic,” MD 72. pp. 43–54.
Häußler, R. 1986. “Der Dichterling. Zu einem ungeschriebenen Kapitel der Poetik,” in U. J. Stache, W. Maaz and F. Wagner, eds., Kontinuität und Wandel. Lateinische Poesie von Naevius bis Baudelaire. Franco Munari zum 65. Geburtstag. Hildesheim. pp. 217–53.
Herzog, R. 1996. “Vom Aufhören. Darstellungsformen menschlicher Dauer im Ende,” in Stierle and Warning 1996. pp. 283–329.
Jacoby, F. 1914. “Drei Gedichte des Properz,” RhM 69. pp. 393–413, 427–63.
Johnson, T. S. 2012. Horace’s Iambic Criticism. Casting Blame (Iambike Poiesis). Leiden and Boston.
Kaesser, Ch. 2013. “False Closure and Deception,” in Grewing, Acosta-Hughes and Kirichenko 2013. pp. 29–42.
Kennedy, D. 2008. “Elegy and the Erotics of Narratology,” in G. Liveley and P. Salzman-Mitchell, eds., Latin Elegy and Narratology. Fragments of Story. Columbus. pp. 19–33.
Kiessling, A. and Heinze, R. 1961. Q. Horatius Flaccus. Briefe. Berlin.
Kilpatrick, R. S. 1990. The Poetry of Criticism. Horace, Epistles II and Ars Poetica. Edmonton, Alberta.
Kozák, D. 2014. “Si forte reponis Achillem: Achilles in the Ars poetica, the Metamorphoses, and the Achilleid,” MD 72. pp. 207–21.
Krupp, J. 2014. “Textus sui interpres optimus. Zu einem Prinzip philologischer Hermeneutik,” Geschichte der Germanistik 45–46. pp. 151–56.
Laird, A. 2007. “The Ars Poetica,” in S. Harrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Horace. Cambridge. pp. 132–43.
Lefèvre, E. 1966. Propertius ludibundus. Elemente des Humors in seinen Elegien. Heidelberg.
Lowrie, M. 1997. Horace’s Narrative Odes. Oxford.
Lowrie, M. 2013. “Foundation and Closure,” in Grewing, Acosta-Hughes and Kirichenko 2013. pp. 83–101.
Lowrie, M. 2014. “Politics by Other Means in Horace’s Ars poetica,” MD 72. pp. 121–42.
Marquard, O. 1996. “Finalisierung und Mortalität,” in Stierle and Warning 1996. pp. 467–75.
Mayer, R. 1994. Horace. Epistles, Book I. Cambridge.
Miller, J. H. 1998. Reading Narrative. Norman.
Norden, E. 1905. “Die Composition und Literaturgattung der Horazischen Epistula ad Pisones,” Hermes 40. pp. 481–528.
Oliensis, E. 1995. “Life After Publication: Horace Epistles 1.20,” Arethusa 28. pp. 209–24.
Oliensis, E. 1998. Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority. Cambridge.
Reitz, Ch. 2005. “Horaz’ Literaturbriefe und die Lehrdichtung,” in M. Horster and Ch. Reitz, eds., Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart. pp. 211–26.
Rimell, V. 2013. “(En)closure and Rupture: Roman Poetry in the Arena,” in Grewing, Acosta-Hughes and Kirichenko 2013. pp. 103–27.
Roberts, D. H., Dunn, F. M. and Fowler, D. P., eds. 1997. Classical Closure. Princeton.
Rudd, N. 1989. Horace. Epistles, Book II and Epistle to the Pisones (Ars Poetica). Cambridge.
Russel, D. A. and Winterbottom, M., eds. 1972. Ancient Literary Criticism. The Principal Texts in New Translations. Oxford.
Schwindt, J. P. 2012. “Über Genauigkeit,” in E. Hoppe, Mathematik und Astronomie im Klassischen Altertum. Vol. 2. Ed. J. P. Schwindt. Heidelberg. pp. 269–301.
Schwindt, J. P. 2014. “Ordo and Insanity. On the Pathogenesis of Horace’s Ars poetica,” MD 72. pp. 55–70.
Shackleton Bailey, D. R. 2008. Horatius. Opera. Ed. ster. ed. quart. 2001. Berlin and New York.
Smith, B. H. 1968. Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End. Chicago.
Stierle, K. and Warning, R., eds. 1996. Das Ende. Figuren einer Denkform. München.
Tamás, Á. 2014. “Reading Ovid Reading Horace. The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica,” MD 72. pp. 173–92.
Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, Ch. 2013. “Horace on the Role of the Poetry’s Audience in the Literary Process,” Trends in Classics 5. pp. 341–75.
Walde, A. 1938. Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 3., von J. B. Hofmann neubearbeitete Auflage. I–II. Heidelberg
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
When submitting papers to PhaoS, authors should be aware that PhaoS shall hold all relevant copyrights over such papers if they are accepted for publication. Manuscripts will not be returned.
