Horace in La-la Land: The Pure Poetry of <i>Odes</i> 1.22 and 2.5

This essay reappraises the relation of Horace’s Lalage odes (Carm. 1.22 and 2.5) both to their Aeolic precursors (Sappho and Alcaeus) and to each other. After resurveying the Aeolic landscape reflected in the Horatian corpus, it argues that Odes 1.22 and 2.5 occupy a special and hitherto underappreciated place within this landscape. The former poem integrates the erotic experience described in Sappho frag. 31 with the exilic experience described in Alcaeus frag. 130b, while the latter employs elusive allusions and an ambiguous addressee to differentiate itself both from its Sapphic sources (frags. 1, 31, and 96) and from Odes 1.22 itself.