{"id":17558,"date":"2025-06-03T18:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T22:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17558"},"modified":"2025-06-03T18:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T22:53:12","slug":"episode-641-peter-stothard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-641-peter-stothard","title":{"rendered":"Episode 641 – Peter Stothard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 641:
\nPeter Stothard<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_641_-_Peter_Stothard.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“What’s very important if you’re writing a biography \u2014 a personal history \u2014 of a poet is to get as close as possible to the process of writing, how it sounded, how he made it sing, how he made the words fit together.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Can we find the poet in their poems? With HORACE: Poet on a Volcano<\/a> (Yale University Press), Peter Stothard<\/a> explores how the life of the great Roman poet unfolds though his art and the histories. We talk about why he wrote this biography through a critical study of Horace’s poems (and why that’s been a controversial approach), how Horace embodied the artist-as-madman long before the Romantic era, and why it was important to show the alienness of Horace’s verse and how nervous Peter was about translating him into English to show how the Latin works. We get into Horace’s place in Rome’s history, how he bridged Greek poetic modes into Latin, the variety of genres Horace worked in (and invented), and why the poet was cancelled early and often over the centuries. We also discuss mortality and legacy, how Horace & I reacted to not getting killed by falling trees, why a certain Great Books program is so Athens-centric, how Peter’s secondary school introduced him to “INCIPE!,” “Sapere Aude,” and “Carpe Diem,” among other Horace-isms, and more! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read HORACE: Poet on a Volcano<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“The literature as a window into understanding the culture was unique to Rome. We don’t have an extensive Vandal literature, or literature of Goths, and what the Gauls were writing, we don’t know.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n