Massey Lecture: Horace as Post-Modern

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

SEMINAR SERIES 2009

Wednesday 22 July – 12noon-12.30pm

MB 3.25

Horace as Post-Modern

An admonitory tale for two eras

Colin Anderson

The worlds of 1^st century BCE Europe and of the contemporary West are remarkably alike. Both dominated by one superpower, both constructed around a dominant cultural ideology developed over the previous 300 years – but both at a point where the prevailing social, political and religious structures underpinning this ideology – their “grand narratives” – are under severe challenge.

In the contemporary West, this is the Zeitgeist of the Post-Modern, which, with other expressions, is also mediated through its literature. The similar collapse of the ancient grand narratives can also be perceived through the literature of that time.

This talk examines one example of this “ancient Post-Modernism” in the Odes of Horace.