Horace: Satires Book I Satires Book I

Helps readers to translate and interpret Horace's first book of Satires in the light of recent scholarship.

Horace's first book of Satires is his debut work, a document of one man's self-fashioning on the cusp between republic and empire, and a pivotal text in the history of Roman satire. It wrestles with the problem of how to define and assimilate satire and justifies the poet's own position in a suspicious society. The commentary gives full weight to the dense texture of these poems while helping readers interpret their most cryptic aspects and appreciate their technical finesse. The introduction puts Horace in context as late-Republican newcomer and a vital figure in the development of satire, and discusses the structure and meaning of Satires I, literary and philosophical influences, style, metre, transmission and Horace's rich afterlife. Each poem is followed by an essay offering overall interpretation. This work is designed for upper-level students and scholars of classics but contains much of interest to specialists in later European literature.

Introduction; Text; Commentary.

Major new commentary on Horace's debut work, in which he wrestles with the problem of how to define and assimilate satire. Designed primarily for upper-level university students of classics, providing help with grammar and syntax as well as literary, historical and sociological aspects of the text.

E. J. Gowers is Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Her first book, The Loaded Table (1993), about the representation of food in Latin literature, won the Premio Langhe Ceretto in 1994. With William Fitzgerald, she co-edited Ennius Perennis (Cambridge Classical Journal supplementary volume 31, 2007), to which she contributed a chapter and the introduction. She has written numerous articles on Roman satire and has also published widely on other aspects of Latin literature and culture, including Apuleius, Columella, Ovid, Terence, Valerius Maximus, Virgil, Roman food, trees, Sicily, the Emperor Augustus and the Cloaca Maxima. She regularly reviews books for the Times Literary Supplement and other journals.