Wiener Studien 132/2019, pp. 115-170, 2019/06/05
Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition
This study aims to analyze and answer three interrelated questions: (1) Is it likely, that for many, even most members of the reading community Horatius' Carmina were destined for, these poems entailed a first encounter with lyric poetry tout court in any language? (2) Assuming that contemporary readers of Horatius' Carmina knew how to read everyday literary genres, but not how to respond to lyric poetry: in what way could such an audience learn how to understand lyric poetry, or at least Horatian lyrics, from reading the first poems of Carmina Book 1, the so-called ‚Parade-Odes‘? (3) Is it possible, that the latter provide an exceedingly well-orchestrated and effective introductory course in reading lyric poetry, making it likely that their positioning and arrangement at the opening of Book 1 was – if only one among other goals – intended as some kind of lyrical διδαχή?
