How The Complete Poems drew on The Odes of Horace
A documented line of influence: Ben Jonson 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 Poems
Ben Jonson · 1616
PoetsRelevance
9/10
On The Complete Poems’s page
- Jonson built his whole self-image on Horace — translator of the Ars Poetica, the self-styled English 'second Horace'
- His odes, epistles, and epigrams are densely woven with Horace; a poem like 'Inviting a Friend to Supper' carries Horatian lines right inside it
- Read the Odes first and Jonson's classical poise stops looking like a pose — you're hearing the model he chose to live up to
On The Odes of Horace’s page
- Horace gave Ben Jonson an entire literary identity — Jonson cast himself as 'Horace' in Poetaster and was hailed by his peers as a 'second Horace'
- He translated Horace's Ars Poetica into English verse and modeled his own odes, epistles, and epigrams on the Roman's
- The Horatian ideal — measured, classical, sociable — runs straight from the Odes into Jonson's voice