Horace proclaims his Epodes an innovative triumph (ego primosiambos/ ostendi Latio, Ep. 1.19.23f.) yet until very recently they haveremained in the gutter of the Augustan canon; this unashamedly lowpoetry collection has suffered an equally low status inscholarship. For some Horace’s uncompromising iambic personaseems too unsavoury for ‘serious’ study; for others the Epodes pale incomparison with his Odes and are dismissed as the product ofHorace’s poetic early years (the B-Side tothe Satires). Contemporary scholarship, however, is beginning toreaddress the balance: three commentaries on the collection(Cavarzere, Mankin, Watson), in addition to important studies on thecollection’s unity, representations of the Horatian persona(e), andconsideration of the Epodes’ relationship to the Greek iambic traditionhave helped to revive critical interest in Horace’s Epodes.
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