Horace's Ut Pictura Poesis

Horace opens his Ars poetica with several comparisons between the arts to illustrate the 'structural’ decorum which all unified works must share. Later, he develops an extended analogy between painting and poetry, introduced by the phrase ut pictura poesis , to illustrate the nature of the 'stylistic’ decorum necessary to please, and to continue to please, the critical reader. In an earlier essay entitled ‘The Meaning of Horace's Ut Pictura Poesis ,’ I tried to show how this analogy (361–5) concludes the preceding discussion of faults which may and may not be overlooked in a long work (347–60). In the present paper, in addition to collecting further evidence for this interpretation, I shall argue that the lines in question (361–5) form, at the same time, a transitional introduction to the following analysis of the kind of pleasure appropriate to poetry and of how it may best be protected (366–90)

Analogy · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Art history · Decorum · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Meaning (existential · Painting · Phrase · Poetry · The arts · Visual arts · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · Philosophy