Horace Book 2

Odes Book 2

Throughout book 2, Horace writes with a variety of themes that include Rome, love, aging, modesty, and death. He focuses on these to, in a way, create a timeline of life experiences and to show the movement from being young and immature to being grown up and mature.

1) Rome and War

2) Wealth

3) Death and modesty

4)  Love

5) Love and aging (maturation)

6)  Aging

7) Friendship

8) Love and seduction

9) Moving on from sorrow

10) Adjusting in adversity

11) Aging

12) Love

13) Death

14) Aging and Death

15) Wealth and modesty

16) Modesty

17) Death

18) Modesty

19) Bacchus

20) Death

Horace divides his work in book 2 mainly based on general experiences in life that can be split into four main stages of his life. He starts off in poem 1 about the state of Rome and the effects of war. He then moves on for the next couple poems to talk about love in life. Horace talks about seduction and maturation of young girls into women who would eventually come to love him. Then comes the middle of his life in which he faces adversity in poem nine and ten. He must overcome losing a loved one and hurt. As the book progresses, and he ages, Horace’s poems focus on taking what you are given in life and being modest and giving back to the world and not taking things for granted. He reminds men to have a leveled head and not to be cocky and arrogant. Lastly, he focuses mostly on death and how it is inevitable. Since death is inevitable and everyone is in the boat, one should be generous and be humble.