Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Dr Armand D’Angour turns our attention to the lyrical poetry of Horace, as it is placed within the Greek musical and poetic inheritance. With close readings of key odes, he shows us how Horace uses Greek lyric meters to achieve something both rhythmic and aural. Constructed around the themes of love, time, and political life, these poems can be seen as carefully constructed personnae, rather than autobiographical confession. This lyric poetry is shown to be a disciplined artform that carries inherited Greek forms into something distinctly Roman, without disturbing the musical intelligence beneath them. These poems were not written to be read silently, but were deeply connected to music, rhythm, and memory. By recovering this dimension, Professor D’Angour illuminates Horace not just as a literary figure, but as a poet working within a living tradition of song in which meaning is brought about through the interplay of sound, structure, and voice.
Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:
Horace’s Odes
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
Sappho
Alcaeus
Anacreon
Pindar
Catullus
Virgil
Aristotle
Plato
Epicurus
Augustus
Maecenas
– Chapters —
00:01:14 - Introduction: The Case for the Generalist
00:07:31 - Lecture Begins: Between Greece and Rome
00:10:31 - Music, Meter, and the Sound of Ancient Poetry
00:14:42 - Cultural Transformation between Greece
00:20:58 - Horace’s Life, Background, and Formation
00:30:21 - The Themes of Love, Time, and Lightness
00:35:26 - The Philosophy of the Present
00:50:31 - Becoming a Lyric Poet
01:05:15 - Singing the Odes
01:07:44 - Poetry, Image, and Imagination
Dr Armand D’Angour turns our attention to the lyrical poetry of Horace, as it is placed within the Greek musical and poetic inheritance. With close readings of key odes, he shows us how Horace uses Greek lyric meters to achieve something both rhythmic and aural. Constructed around the themes of love, time, and political life, these poems can be seen as carefully constructed personnae, rather than autobiographical confession. This lyric poetry is shown to be a disciplined artform that carries inherited Greek forms into something distinctly Roman, without disturbing the musical intelligence beneath them. These poems were not written to be read silently, but were deeply connected to music, rhythm, and memory. By recovering this dimension, Professor D’Angour illuminates Horace not just as a literary figure, but as a poet working within a living tradition of song in which meaning is brought about through the interplay of sound, structure, and voice.
Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:
Horace’s Odes
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
Sappho
Alcaeus
Anacreon
Pindar
Catullus
Virgil
Aristotle
Plato
Epicurus
Augustus
Maecenas
– Chapters —
00:01:14 - Introduction: The Case for the Generalist
00:07:31 - Lecture Begins: Between Greece and Rome
00:10:31 - Music, Meter, and the Sound of Ancient Poetry
00:14:42 - Cultural Transformation between Greece
00:20:58 - Horace’s Life, Background, and Formation
00:30:21 - The Themes of Love, Time, and Lightness
00:35:26 - The Philosophy of the Present
00:50:31 - Becoming a Lyric Poet
01:05:15 - Singing the Odes
01:07:44 - Poetry, Image, and Imagination
