Horace Ars Poetica

Horace really seems like my kind of guy. His need for decorum, although it may seem a bit tight-assed, is probably my favorite thing about him. I took this in a commercial sense seeing as how we operate in the world today. Every writer needs to understand the importance of the appropriateness of their published work. For a writer wanting to get started, this is a great way to make their work easily understandable and a good read for the average reader. Finding a style that they can excel with and build upon should be the number one priority. This can be applied to many facets of life, but this is a literature class so I will not go off on a tangent. But getting back to my point, what is written should be written in a way that would make it easily understandable to the reader and want the reader to come back to this author for more, whether it be a text book or a steamy sex novel about vampires.

The social decorum that Horace speaks of  is also of high interest with today's meltdowns of economies and the hatred many people have for who is "running" their country. Protest poems are absolutely a good thing to get the word of the people out in times of distress. Take for instance, back in 2003 or 2004, when Laura Bush asked writers to an evening of poetry at the White House, many of the poets declined the invitation and one, Sam Hammil, with the help of others, staged readings at libraries and collected poems and published the book Poets Against the War. People should, and I'm proud that they do, take a stand for what they believe is best for their country. Another example is all of the propaganda, that is now somewhat comical, that was used during 1940's to draw support for the war. Propaganda is a-ok.

http://youtu.be/eAttrxM0nN4

(I couldn't get this thing to embed a video to save my life)


I should probably mention that I do understand the importance of experimentation in writing. It is important for writing to move forward. Not to mention the fact that people get bored very easily and sometimes just want something different. Horace does tell us, after all, that "words once uttered forget the way home" (131). So while keeping in mind the importance of the published work, sometimes a writer just has to do his thing while he's doing his thing.

While doing a bit wandering on the Google, I ran across some interesting tidbits about our man Horace. First off I have to give a shout out to Poets.org. and then another shout out to Maecenas for giving Horace a farm to live on so that he could concentrate on his writing. Horace was said to have loved this little set up and that he would just chill in bed until 10 a.m. many a morning. How about that.



http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/331