{"product_id":"9781466894921","title":"The Epistles of Horace","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy aim is to take familiar things and make\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePoetry of them, and do it in such a way\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThat it looks as if it was as easy as could be\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFor anybody to do it . . . the power of making\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA perfectly wonderful thing out of nothing much\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e--from \"The Art of Poetry\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen David Ferry's translation of \u003ci\u003eThe Odes of Horace\u003c\/i\u003e appeared in 1997, Bernard Knox, writing in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, called it \"a Horace for our times.\" In \u003ci\u003eThe Epistles of Horace\u003c\/i\u003e, Ferry has translated the work in which Horace perfected the conversational verse medium that gives  his voice such dazzling immediacy, speaking in these letters with such  directness, wit, and urgency to young writers, to friends, to his patron  Maecenas, to Emperor Augustus himself. It is the voice of a free man,  talking about how to get along in a Roman world full of temptations,  opportunities, and contingencies, and how to do so with one's integrity  intact. Horace's world, so unlike our own and yet so like it, comes to  life in these poems. And there are also the poems--the famous \"Art of  Poetry\" and others--about the tasks and responsibilities of the  writer: truth to the demands of one's medium, fearless clear-sighted  self-knowledge, and unillusioned, uncynical realism, joyfully  recognizing the world for what it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAvailable in ebook for the first time, this English-only edition of \u003ci\u003eThe Epistles of Horace\u003c\/i\u003e includes Ferry's translation along with his introduction, notes, and glossary. \"Reading these versions we feel as if the streets that Horace walked have opened onto our own\" (Peter Campion\u003ci\u003e, Raritan\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47163304673520,"sku":"9781466894921","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781466894921_p0.jpg?v=1769892331","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781466894921","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}