Horace - biography. Quintus Horace Flaccus - Ancient Roman poet

Horace - the second great Roman poet after Virgil, who set himself the task of creating exemplary literature. He believed that poetry is the "gymnastics of the language". Horace did not like the lyrics of Catullus and sought to write works that would be similar to Virgil's high-content and moralistic poems.

The reader is interested not only in the work of the great Roman poet, but also in his historical era, biography. Horace Quint made a great contribution to world literature, although he came from a simple family. In his poems he formulated his own wisdom and gave a whole series of recommendations of a moral and ethical plan, based on the philosophy of the golden mean.

Horace: biography and life path

The great Roman poet was born in 65 BC. E. In Vienna. His work falls on the first decade of the reign of Octavian Augustus, who took the place of Caesar. He was born in the family of a freedman who took care of the formation of his son and after his death left him a small estate.

The life of the poet was directly connected with the work of Maecenas. When Caesar was killed in Rome, Quintus Horace Flaccus joined the supporters of Brutus. It was Maecenas who helped him to establish himself in life: he gave the estate and introduced him into the circle of Augustus.

Horace died of a sudden illness in the 8th century BC. E. He was buried next to his virtue by Maecenas on the outskirts of Esquiline.

Features of creativity

Quintus Horace Flaccus was a versatile poet who created samples of poetry in different lyrical genres - ode and hymns. Both works in form and mood are solemn enough. However, his ode, issued in four books, is not aimed at praising someone else's merits, but reflects the poet's vital wisdom and his philosophy. Horace gives them advice, referring to the one to whom the ode is dedicated.

All the work of the great Roman poet can be divided into several cycles by genre:

1. Epos (poem-two-textures of iambic character).

2. Satire (works of an accusatory nature). Written by hexameter.

3. Ode (lyric poems dedicated to an event).

Horace, whose biography is represented by three periods of creativity, all his life adhered to the philosophy of the golden mean, built on wisdom, discretion, beauty, virtue and harmony.

Genre of the message

Quintus Horace Flaccus, whose verses for the most part were dedicated to individuals, quite succeeded in this literary genre. He wrote 23 letters, the last of which - "To Pisons" - was the second literary work after the "Science of Poetry" of Aristotle, which indicates its importance in the context of world literature. The main thing in Horace's aesthetics is reasonableness, conformity to nature, so that the style and the chosen words fully correspond to the topic being raised. His poetry is difficult to understand. Johann Wolfgang Goethe once wrote that the images in the epistles are like a "pendulum". The composition of lyrical verses is complicated by the fact that Horace could skilfully move from one image to another, using different verse sizes in the text. His poems are filled with various proper names, geographical names, and he pays attention to detail.

Thematic groups od Horace

Poems-reflections are the embodiment of wisdom. Quintus Horace Flaccus, whose work is mainly represented by four books, writes in this thematic group about the short duration of life and the speed of the current time. For him, the pursuit of honors and riches is meaningless. In ode sounds the theme of love, feast, but unlike the poems of Catullus, their tone is happy and comforting. You can count 7 female names, to which Horace writes poems-reflections. In one of his odes (No. 30 "To Melpomene") he raises the problem of immortality of the poet and enters into the tradition, beginning with Egyptian poetry, that the immortality of man is achieved as a result of his work, the creation of literary works. Her infinity is seen in verse by Horace.

Analysis of odes No. 30

This work received the conventional name "Monument". The poem was so popular with the classics of Russian literature that Gavrila Derzhavin borrowed the idea of the immortality of the poet's creativity, Alexander Pushkin ("I erected a miraculous monument to myself"), Valery Bryusov ("My monument stands, from stanzas Consonant difficult "). The latter two borrowed the stanzas in Latin as an epigraph in Latin, which Horace once said. The biography of the poet, as you know, was far from enviable: from childhood he did not know the luxury and tried to remain in the memory of people for centuries on his own.

Ode № 30 is called "To Melpomene" and finishes the third book od; Melpomene in mythology is the muse of tragedy. In the work, Horatius discusses his achievements and at the end he appeals with an appeal to crown himself with a laurel crown. To date, the most successful translations of odes number 30 are the poems of Lomonosov and Vostokov.

Satire Horace

Peru, the great Roman poet, owns several collections of satyrs. From this it is worthwhile inferring that he became famous not only as a master of odes. Satire Horace resemble philosophical reasoning over the meaning of life, it is in them he expresses the philosophy of the golden mean. The main object of derision is the false ways of happiness, the pursuit of imaginary goods. Quintus Horace Flaccus, whose poems are of a satirical nature, sarcastically over revelers and drunkards. One of his vital recommendations says that one should not become a slave of wine and abuse this drink to quell sorrow. Despite the fact that the object of ridicule in the satires are human passions and vices, in them he writes about personal: in satire No. 6, for example, he tells the story of his life. Horace, having a low background, lives, content with the small and does not know the luxury.

Master of verse sizes

Horace sometimes does not hide his origins in his poems and is not ashamed that he is the son of a slave released to freedom. According to the calculation of the literary critic Mikhail Gasparov, the poet used in his poetry 12 types of ancient Greek stanzas, his genius lies in masterful knowledge and possession of poetic art. In the first book of his odes he gave a "parade" of these sizes, presented the sapphic, alcove and other stanzas. In addition to Horace, whose years of life were very productive, he worked with the epics, which are very similar in form to the songs. They express political content and, as in iambics, deride the shortcomings of the people and people (the brightest example is "To the Roman people").

Recommendations Horace with explanations

"Be happy with what you have in your hands." The poet implied a simple life-truth, which says that one must live and rejoice in the present day and not condemn the creator for not every man is noble and rich. All goods should be received in an honest way and be content with small things.

"There is no use in money, if you save it, but do not waste it." How many cases history knows when a person tried to earn his whole life for life, refusing himself in many respects, and, having earned it, died suddenly. Horace considers such a philosophy wrong: you need to evenly spend your earned money and live fully, without restrictions.

"Stir the lives of life with wine, but know the measure." Hedonism as a direction in aesthetics propagates the idea of pleasure as the supreme goal of human life. Horace shared this view in half: drinking wine, of course, can quench grief, but they should not be abused.

"Fall in love, but do not suffer from love." Horace, whose biography is full of seven female names, has brought out the truth through which a man can live in harmony with his heart. He does not deny love, but opposes passion and suffering.

The history of Roman literature in names

The most famous Roman comedian is Titus Maccius Plaut. He wrote about fifty comedies, but only 19 of us have reached us. In total, he owns over 20 thousand poetic lines.

Titus Lucretius Carus and Gaius Valerius Catullus are the brightest representatives of the Roman literature of the Republic. The first is the author of the work "On the Nature of Things", and the second is famous for his love poems.

Publius Virgil Maron tried himself in many literary genres. This ancient Roman poet is the author of the heroic poem "Aeneid"

Publius Ovidia Nazon is called the younger contemporary of Horace. He is the author of the poem "Science of Love" written in an ironic spirit, as well as a collection of songs "Amores".

Phaedrus is an outstanding poet-fabulist, who first began to write fables in verse form. He became famous for his own works and translations of Aesop.

Initially, the term "prose" was used by the Romans to denote non-rhythmic speech. The first works appeared in a non-viable form much later. A well-known prose writer is considered to be Apuleius - the author of the adventure novel "The Golden Donkey", behind him stands the Petronius Arbitrator who wrote "Satyricon".