Brandeis University
Spring semester, 2003
ENG 171A: History of Literary Criticism
Miles Rind
January 24, 2003

      Reading: (1) Aristotle, Poetics, chs. XV–XVIII and XXIII–XXVI (CT, 57–60 and 62–66, or PDF file on course web site). If you are using the PDF file, be sure that you get the handout containing a passage that I inadvertently omitted from the end of chapter XXIV (on line here).
      (2) Horace, Art of Poetry (CT, 68–74)

      Question: One of the most famous lines in Horace’s Art of Poetry is “Ut pictura poesis”—in Bate’s translation, “Poetry is like painting” (CT, 73; line 361). The comparison has been taken in all sorts of ways, but what does Horace seem to mean by it?

      Note: This is not a deep question. It is difficult to pose a question about this text without being either dull and obvious or far-reaching and difficult. My question is dull and obvious.