Jennifer Ferris-Hill has done what others have called for, but not themselves achieved: read the whole of Horace's Ars poetica for what it is, a poem. This revolutionary gesture jettisons the presupposition that this nearly five-hundred-line work in verse serves primarily as a guide to poetic composition. Joining the movement that stresses all the work didactic poetry does besides teaching is fraught in this case, because the tradition of reading the Ars as a manual has impeded its interpretation to a greater extent than, say, Vergil's Georgics, which no farmer ever looked to for practical guidance. One might think its typical readership of poets and scholars would be especially attuned to literary feints, but the Ars has suffered from being taken too seriously. F. restores its rightful seriousness as a playful and knowing work of art in the same vein as Horace's Sermones and Epistles. Like his other poetry, it queries what it means to be a work of art, an artist and a human being.
With incisive treatments of the standard prickly philological chestnuts — the name, genre and date of the poem, its addressees’ identity, unity — F. takes the bull by the horns and shows that attempting to answer these questions independently of appreciating the Ars’ poetic complexity puts the cart before the horse. In her analysis, the first word, humano, and the opening excoriation of incompatible hybrid images govern the rest of the poem. Human nature in all its convolutions is the poem's consistent theme: reason, emotions, sociability, bodily disgust, judgement, ridiculousness, criticism, hard work and mirth. It stands to reason, then, that the genre would be hybrid (didactic, satire, epistle), the addressees layered, the poem probably written over a long time — maybe even the nine years Horace recommends keeping a work in a drawer before publication. The many contexts in which titles were used makes it likely ancient poems went by more than one title (8). Nevertheless, she accepts the ancient attestations of ars poetica or liber de arte poetica starting with Quintilian. F. makes these tired questions refreshing, covering the evidence expeditiously while elucidating the interpretive questions hanging on them. Her reasonable conclusions respect how poetry actually works.
The nature of the addressees is a case in point. The two central chapters, ‘Pisones’ and ‘Amici, risum’, begin with the named addressees’ identity. Indeterminacy between the Lucii and the Gnaei Pisones and across generations is productive: the former bring patronage of the arts into the picture, the latter fought on the same side as Horace at Philippi. The name, however, bears more than referential weight. Like the Rockefellers or the Kennedys, the Pisones stand for power and privilege. They ‘function as placeholders for any person who is not Horace but thinks s/he can be’ (106). This insightful intervention lets F. pivot to the conventional didactic addressee, who by generic necessity always needs more teaching; to the Pisones’ function as friends, with all the complexity of patronage mixed with egalitarian relationships in Roman amicitia; the role of multiple addressees over multiple generations; and how Horace speaks to them. The poet, who stands sometimes in loco parentis, has always been ambivalent about children, literary or actual. He skirts his teaching role, as he wriggles out from onerous obligations in the rest of his poetry. The reader, attracted by the elite status of the Pisones, nevertheless shies away from identifying with the unteachable dolts the sons appear to be. But the addressees’ quality as friends opens up a further vein of interpretation. Sociability, like good poetry, depends on decorum. Disobeying its standards exposes you to ridicule, and much of the poem concerns avoiding becoming the butt of degrading laughter. With a characteristically Horatian metonymic slide, friendship affords the chance to talk about criticism and judgement, central topics of the poem. Life, society and art all intertwine.
Recognising the Ars’ poeticity relieves it of many expectations that weigh down appreciation. The sublimely surprising ending makes more sense of a poem concerned with the typical Horatian topics of ‘the coherence of poetry and lifestyle, ethics and art’ (239) than of a how-to guide to composition.
The book opens with a translation of Shackleton-Bailey's slightly revised text. F.'s decision to remove section paragraphing is a bold and liberating gesture. Reading the Ars without these breaks releases its flow. Many transitions unfold smoothly, as often in Horace; many are abrupt. But we recognise shifts in topic easily without the pauses and the continuity of the voice is enhanced. The workable translation nods rarely (pudenter is translated as if prudenter), miraculously keeps the English lines parallel to the Latin, and cleverly joins phrases; e.g., ‘judgment and the code and norms of speech’ conveys the legal language at line 72 elegantly without unduly stressing the law.
The concluding survey of the Ars’ reception bolsters F.'s argument: much of the tradition that values the poem has treated it in all its complexity. The tendency to read it as a manual came late and, with it, appreciation has waned. The final chapter could well serve as a template for a course syllabus on arts of poetry.
By freeing the Ars poetica from the shackles of utilitarian interpretation, F. has performed a great and lasting service to Horace. She has not covered all possible topics — more could be done with legal vocabulary, for instance. But she has opened a door for others to walk through.
