Taylor Mali performs "Ars Poetica"

Should we take Horace's advice?

For today's entry, I will be reviewing Horace's "Ars Poetica", a treatise on poetics and the place that decorum and form have in contemporary and future poetry.  At the beginning of the letter, Horace outlines his belief that writers possess a certain degree of freedom in his or her writing, within the bounds which keep them from polar extremes. He states this idea clearly on page 122**: "let the work of art be whatever you want, as long as it is simple and is unified."


The rest of Horace's letter, however, simply seems to illustrate certain limitations, guidelines, and rules a poet, playwright, or any other writer should follow. All of his proposed guidelines aim toward a common goal: to please the audience. Horace emphasizes "popular favor", "fan(s) in the audience", "popular demand", giving the public pleasure, "invent to please".


I wonder, then, what freedom a writer truly has who is a slave to popular opinion. While one may assent to the writer's right to write anything within certain loose bounds, is he able to exercise this right practically? How should the writer combine both the need to please the audience and the freedom to write whatever he chooses? 


Here are some points to remember during reading: 


1. It is better to follow a traditional story than to invent a new one. 


2. Good writing reflects good thinking. 


3. A play should be five acts--no more, no less. 


4. Graphic scenes should not be performed but saved for narration. 


5. Fictions need to keep as near as possible to real life. 


**The book I'm citing is The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism.