Bacchus in Horace

• Grant number: 15/21921-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2016
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Martins
• Grantee: Lya Valéria Grizzo Serignolli
• Supervisor: William Fitzgerald
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: King's College London, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/07303-9 - Bacchus, the symposium, and the poets, BP.DR

Abstract

The celebration of Bacchus was a favourite topic in Augustan poets, who treated this god as a source of ingenium and of the secret knowledge that the poets possessed. As a god of wine, poetry and symbol of libertas, Bacchus plays a significant role in Horace's sympotic poetry. The Odes and Epodes are sources of examples of the representations of Bacchus in poetry; and the Epistles, Satires and Ars Poetica touch on some key issues in dionysiac poetics. The research "Bacchus in Horace" explores the representations of Bacchus with special focus on dionysiac poetics in four themes associated with this god in Horace: politics, war, love and the poet's craft. The main task is to observe how Horace utilizes the dionysiac repertoire in certain metaphors, metonymies, similes and allegories, adapting the deity to new interests in question. This research will provide a sound platform for the study of Bacchus in Latin poetry, covering issues of poetics and sympotic celebration in Horace. (AU)