Poetics and polemics

This dissertation argues that Horace constructed his satiric idiom in large part from Attic Old Comedy. Chapter 1 establishes the keen interest in the dramatic genres, particularly Old Comedy, evinced throughout Horace's Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica . Chapter 2 explores the role of food and the body in Roman Satire and Old Comedy, viewed through Bakhtin. Chapter 3 investigates the similar ways in which Aristophanes and Horace present themselves as intimately tied to the life of the city, and claim for themselves the role of teacher. The final two chapters explore various different manifestations of criticism, and it is here that the notions of poetics and polemics come together. Chapter 4 is devoted to an examination of the "literary response": a device that allows poets to present a defense of their artistic program as if it were a response to criticisms they have received. Chapter 5 argues that in their literary critical activities, Horace and Aristophanes should be understood as separate from the rest of the ancient literary critical corpus, and intimately bound to one another. Throughout these chapters I attribute the points of contact between Old Comedy and Roman Satire to a quality I term their exotericism, that is, outward directedness: as satirists, Horace and Aristophanes are inspired by their surroundings, and engage in relentless dialogue with them.