Horace's Narrative Odes

Narrative has not traditionally been a subject in the analysis of lyric poetry. This book deconstructs the polarity that divides and binds lyric and narrative means of representation in Horace's Odes. While myth is a canonical feature of Pindaric epinician, Horace cannot adopt the Pindaric mode for aesthetic and political reasons. Roman Callimacheanism's privileging of the small and elegant offers a pretext for Horace to shrink from the difficulty of writingpraise poetry in the wake of civil war. But Horace by no means excludes story-telling from his enacted lyric. On the formal level, numerous odes contain narration. Together they constitute a larger narrative told over the course of Horace's two lyric collections. Horace tells the story of his development asa lyricist and of the competing aesthetic and political demands on his lyric poetry. At issue is whether he can ever truly become a poet of praise.