EXEGI MONUMENTUM: Zur Rezeption von Horaz' carm. 3,30 und seiner Konzeption eines dichterischen Nachlebens bei Ovid, du Bellay, Ronsard und Puschkin

• Published in: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie Vol. 162; no. 2; pp. 146 - 182
• Main Author: Willms, Lothar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: German
• Published: J. D. Sauerländer's Verlag 01-01-2019
• ISSN: 0035-449X

This paper investigates the metamorphoses which the concept of poetic identity and its permanence as contained in Horace's Ode 3.30 underwent in Ovid, du Bellay, Ronsard and Pushkin. This concept can be mapped by a Cartesian coordinate system. The poet's permanence is herein granted through the ascent on the vertical axis and through constant self-rejuvenation. This concept is performed and appropriated by each poet according to his own and partly his era's style. Ovid yields epigrammatic and laconic concision, neoteric nonchalance and an increased poetic self-confidence. Compilation bestows a Renaissance opulence upon du Bellay's and Ronsard's poems and finally Pushkin's romantic concept of a poet resurrects the loftiness of Horace's uates. All four poets preserve the idea of a poetic ascent at the vertical axis and blend carm. 3.30 with motifs taken from other Horatian odes, esp. the swan ode (2.20). By implementing from this poem the idea that their reception is as universal as the empire they live in Ovid and Pushkin modify the horizontal axis which du Bellay and Ronsard extend down into the earth when claiming poetic permanence. Ovid imagines himself to surpass Horace by claiming immunity from Jupiter's wrath while Pushkin contends that his œuvre is higher than the Alexander column in St. Petersburg and illustrates his sublimity with lofty Church Slavonic elements.