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: Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool), Jula Wildberger (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

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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. 8th 65-Nov. 27th 8 BCE), Persius (34-62 CE), and Juvenal (active early 2nd C) wrote.

The genre’s preferred self-referential term, satura, encodes a key aspect of it: meaning “stuffed full” and variously derived (see Diomedes, Ars

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2302 words

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

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Horace, Satires

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