In the five years between February 1733 and March 1738 Pope published eleven poems that he directly described as Imitations of Horace. In a sense, of course, he had imitated Horace all his life – the four Ethic Epistles ( “Moral Essays”), An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot and the Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogues I & II were all deeply influenced by the Roman poet's example. Pope's admiration for Horace was explicit in as early a work as An Essay on Criticism, 1711:

Horace still charms with graceful Negligence,
And without Method talks us into Sense,
Will like a Friend familiarly convey
The truest Notion in the easiest way (653-6)

This article in full comprises 2308 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 21 March 2002

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Imitations of Horace". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4549, accessed 9 February 2010.]