How The Complete Essays drew on The Odes of Horace
A documented line of influence: Michel de Montaigne demonstrably engaged Horatius’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Odes of Horace
Horatius · 23 BCE
Ancient RomeThe influenced
The Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne · 1580
RenaissanceRelevance
7/10
On The Complete Essays’s page
- Horace is the poet Montaigne reaches for most — the Odes run through the Essays by the dozen, capping arguments on fortune and how to live
- Montaigne placed Horace among the four poets who outstrip all others, and gave him the last word of the entire work
- Read the Odes first and you'll recognize the voice behind Montaigne's — enough that he was nicknamed "the French Horace"
On The Odes of Horace’s page
- Montaigne ranks Horace among the four poets who "by many degrees excel the rest," and elsewhere calls him nearly the only lyric poet worth reading
- The Odes surface again and again in the Essays — on fortune (III.16), on living well — quoted dozens of times as Montaigne's go-to voice
- He earned the tag "the French Horace," and lets Horace speak the final words of the whole book