ABSTRACT
The English-reading student in 1973 is well-placed to study Horace’s poetic technique. He might start with the work of Gordon Williams, particularly helpful on Horace’s originality and the organization of the Odes. He should then move to Nisbet and Hubbard’s 2 massive commentary on the first book, which raises and solves a vast range of problems and abundantly deploys the common store on which Horace drew. This chapter will enter the still exhaustless mine of contemplation by a different shaft, narrow and hazardous. We shall start from a small point of technique and show that it is frequent and important in the Odes; then study some apparent examples of this technique in the hope of improv ing our understanding of the passages where it occurs or seems to occur; then gather our observations to present a general picture of Horace’s poetic technique in the Odes.
