If we can be
shown concrete instances of Horace enriching the lives of men by
increasing their love and mastery of art or multiplying their means of
happiness, we shall not only appreciate better the poet's meaning for
the present day, but be better able to imagine his effect upon men in
the remoter ages whose life is less open to scrutiny.
Our purpose will best be accomplished by demonstrating the very specific
and pronounced effect of Horace, first, upon the formation of the
literary ideal; second, upon the actual creation of literature; and,
third, upon living itself.
1. HORACE AND THE LITERARY IDEAL
There is no better example of the direct effect of Horace than the part
played in the discipline of letters by the _Ars Poetica_. This work is a
literary _causerie_ inspired in part by the reading of Alexandrian
criticism, but in larger part by experience. In it the author's
uppermost themes, as in characteristic manner he allows himself to be
led on from one thought to another, are unity, consistency, propriety,
truthfulness, sanity, and carefulness. Such has been its power by reason
of inner substance and outward circumstance that it has been at times
exalted into a court of appeal hardly less authoritative than Aristotle
himself, from whom in large part it ultimately derives.
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