Grigory Starikovsky

Poet's Masks: Study of Horace's Epodes Grigory Starikovsky

Poet's Masks studies Horace's self-representation in the Epodes and the inner coherence of this iambic collection on the basis of a careful analysis of the individual poems. The book evaluates important aspects of Horace's public and private self-representations in the epodes and critically compares thematic roles of the public and private domains in the collection. As it emphasizes the various power relations that exist between the poet and other characters of the Epodes, Poet's Masks evaluates thematic groupings within the Epodes - the political epodes, the invectives and the poems that deal with love and magic - in terms of Horace's self-representation, as well as in terms of poet's confrontations with his iambic opponents: mistresses, witches, etc. This study conclusively shows that the recurrent motif of confrontation helps to bring cohesion to the Epodes, a poetic collection that enforces and obeys internal structural and rhetorical principles.