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A Mixed Place: The Pastoral Symposium Of Horace, Kristen Ehrhardt

2018 Faculty Bibliography

When Horace invites Tyndaris to an outdoor drinking party in Odes 1.17, he mixes the locus amoenus of pastoral with the trappings of symposia. I argue that the mixture of the two poetic spaces creates a potentially volatile combination by muddling the expectations of each place’s safety and danger. I read 1.17 in light of other pastoral poems in Odes 1 to establish Horace’s creation of safe places through the negation of natural perils. Although pastoral has its own dangers, the addition of sympotic motifs in 1.17 attracts different beasts—sexual predators—to Tyndaris’ party.