The memory and reputation’ of Horace in A. Pope’s Imitations of Horace
Keywords:
Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Horace, Imitations of Horace, Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, translation history, imitationAbstract
The article treats Alexander Pope’s Imitations of Horace as a “libertine way” of translation, described by J. Denham and A. Cowley with regard to the French translations of the day. Attention is focused upon those characteristics of imitation as a type of literary translation which arose from its affinity with the imitatio auctores of Roman rhetoric. As imitations, Pope’s poetical texts aimed to make “the British Muse… in Roman Majesty appear” (Roscommon), to validate the national literature with the help of “quasi- ritualistic function of continually reviving learning and civilization in the canon” (M. H. McMurran). Imitations of Horace, on the one hand, effectively reproduced the Horatian poetic manner in English, and on the other hand, they moved far away from Horace to the modern world and modern taste, “relocating” Horace to “our Age and our Country.” Imitatio was inseparable from the strategy of “rivalry” (aemulatio). The article specifically addresses the strategy of “rivalry” in Pope’s Imitations. The nuances of “rivalry” are explicated using the material of The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated, where Pope enters into a competition with Horace as a moral teacher, setting aside the cautious strategy of the mask (persona), which is slyly contrasted with the inventor of satires, Lucilius, in satires I, 4; I, 10 and II, 1. The article uses John Dryden’s Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire as a relevant context, since Dryden made extensive use of techniques characteristic of Horace’s satires.Downloads
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