[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—There is no doubt
at all that in denying real poetry to Horace Mr. Strachey has many great critics on his side. Your readers will remember, for instance, Goethe's famous criticism of him as being "ohne alle eigentliche Poesie bcsonders in den Oden." Page, in replying to this sweeping statement, has many interesting things to say. He instances the Regulus Ode (3, 5) as possessing real poetic power, and in quoting the lines, "Quid obliquo laborat Lymy ha fugax trepidare rivo ?
he asks, in this case also, if these seven words are not poetry what is ? His final remark is conclusive :—" The praise of nineteen centuries makes rash criticism of the Odes recoil upon the critic."
It seems difficult to understand on what definition of Poetry or Art we must excommunicate Horace. If the object of Art is power and beauty, he has created both in plenty. If poetry is a criticism of life, no one has ever produced one so entirely satisfying and comprehensive.
To insist on passion as the requisite of all great poetry is, as one of your correspondents has already pointed out, to throw overboard practically all Wordsworth, to mention no others at all. It is, perhaps, true that we go to Horace more for a philosophy of life than for poetry, but even so we surely cannot altogether deny him poetic fire, in the fine opening of the Cleopatra Ode, for instance. Also, it must surely be remem- bered that if he had once allowed himself to become unbalanced in his emotions he would have been utterly false to his own philosophy, which examined the passions of men and found them unsatisfying. We might as logically expect Shelley to write an Ode to Tyranny as Horace to write one in direct contradiction to his own calm and tranquil ideas.
Surely it is a narrow view which denies him poetry because his philosophy was wider and his conviction surer than other men's ? Or, to parody a famous phrase of Erasmus : " By identifying the Horatians with the unpoetical, you are making poetry synonymous with unbalanced emotion."—I am, Sir, &c., C. R. H. BAMFORTII. 6 Wetter Road, Putney, S.W.15.
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