Memory, Tradition, and the Unity of the Classical Mind: Dr Armand D’Angour on the Lyrical Poetry of Horace

Dr Armand D'Angour turns our attention to the lyrical poetry of Horace, as it is placed within the Greek musical and poetic inheritance. With close readings of key odes, he shows us how Horace uses Greek lyric meters to achieve something both rhythmic and aural. Constructed around the themes of love, time, and political life, these poems can be seen as carefully constructed personnae, rather than autobiographical confession. This lyric poetry is shown to be a disciplined artform that carries inherited Greek forms into something distinctly Roman, without disturbing the musical intelligence beneath them. These poems were not written to be read silently, but were deeply connected to music, rhythm, and memory. By recovering this dimension, Professor D'Angour illuminates Horace not just as a literary figure, but as a poet working within a living tradition of song in which meaning is brought about through the interplay of sound, structure, and voice. 

 

Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:

• Horace's Odes

• Homer's Iliad and Odyssey

• Sappho

• Alcaeus

• Anacreon

• Pindar

• Catullus

• Virgil

• Aristotle

• Plato

• Epicurus

• Augustus

• Maecenas