The Ars Poetica of Horace in Ovid's Exile Poetry

The Ars poetica has been read as an important term of comparison for the exile elegies: overall, the Horatian text has been seen as the positive model from which Ovid felt compelled to distance himself on account of the misfortunes that had befallen him. Thus Horace represents the authoritative rule that Ovid, avowedly, could no longer respect. Such a principle, it has been argued, governs issues in which a relation between Horatian doctrine and late Ovidian poetry has been perceived, namely the characterization of the poet as mad and the ars/ingenium relation. Notwithstanding all the negatively-based elements, we can perhaps nevertheless detect a positively oriented development of some central characters of the Ars poetica, in connection with the definition of behavioural models that are expected to be constrictive. Ovid observed in the work of his predecessor numerous potentially exploitable components: the manner of construction of the figure of the poet and the indirect procedure of action on the recipient. The Horatian model is important precisely on account of the profound moral sentiment of which it is the bearer.