Horace, Satires

Jennifer Ferriss-Hill (University of Miami)

Ed. by William John Dominik, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (The American University of Paris)

Dates

First circulation or publication -35 - 30

Places

Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection
Satire

Resources

The Satires of Horace consistently stake out their place as the second effort in Roman verse Satire since its “discovery” (Sat. 1.10.48) by Lucilius (?180-102/1 BCE), who established the dactylic hexameter as its metrical form. Although Ennius (239-169 BCE) and Varro (116-27 BCE) also wrote poems they called saturae (Varro’s satires, in a combination of prose and verse, are termed Menippean), these, along with any works of verse Satire no longer extant, were overlooked, and Roman Satire quickly came to be defined as what Lucilius, Horace (Dec. 8^th 65-Nov. 27^th 8 BCE), Persius (34-62 CE), and Juvenal (active early 2^nd C) wrote.

The genre’s preferred self-referential …

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2302 words

Citation: Ferriss-Hill, Jennifer. "Satires". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 September 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13379, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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