Product Description

Horace is the greatest Latin lyric poet, and certainly the most influential. This book provides a new translation of the famous first book of Odes which is both accurate and readable, supported by a basic commentary for students showing how the poems work. The book includes the Oxford Classical Text edition of the Latin text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #609168 in Books
• Published on: 1995-08-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
David West takes a refreshing approach insofar as academic questions are sobered by looking at how the poems work as poems. (Quadrant No.405 )

West, long recognized as an adept interpreter of the poet, includes a useful translation in this volume. The notes contain insightful observations on the elements of a Horatian ode ... his book should not fail to instruct and delight even the most sophisticated reader of Horace. (Religious Studies Review )

Professor West takes us closer to understanding his ancient master works. This may not be fashionable literary theory. It is better than that: to help us to understand a great poem is an act of creative poetry itself. (The Times )

About the Author
Editor of Virgil: The Aeneid (Pengiun Classics, 1991), and author of Reading Horace (Edinburgh UP, 1967), The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh UP, 1969, reprint Bristol CP, 1994)

Customer Reviews

yes, Horace had a sense of humour!
David West's three books (so far) on Horace's odes are very welcome, since he is one of the few people to recognise the odes' humorous content. These aren't complete commentaries to the odes, just chatty discourses around each one, but they are essential in any library, IMO. You'll only be able to improve on them by supplementing them with Nisbett and Hubbard.