Horace - The Quest of a Poetic Ideal or the Enigma of Refusal?

Abstract

In his attempt to clarify the meaning of Horace’s hemistich nil scribens ipse docebo (Ars, 306), the author of this paper considers this line as a particular form of the recusatio motif, which appeared very frequently in Augustan poetry. The peculiarity of this motif derives from the fact that the above mentioned Horatian phrase has an apparently paradoxical character, not to speak of some self-ironical connotations that are suggested by the present participle form scribens.

The author proposes to identify the essential meanings contained in the analysed line from a more general point of view, that is, in the context and the perspective provided by the entire Horatian corpus.

This corpus can be described, through an investigation both chronological and thematic, as a space of plurality and multiplicity of poetic choices, a space of subtle refusal and subsequently of acceptance (implicit or explicit) of various poetic forms, fashionable or not, from the point of view of an ideal model of poetry, supreme and therefore classic. The present research would have, in this case, the right to be considered as a legitimate reconstruction of Horace’s poetic itinerary, certainly representative for Augustan literature, for its classicism, and for Latin spirituality in general.