Kenneth Draper’s new volume investigates genre, gender, and self-presentation in Horace’s first collection of Odes. It examines how Horace uses non-lyric genres—elegy, epic, invective, and philosophical discourse—to define his lyric project, responding to the rhetorical challenge of writing in the wake of civil war. It shows how Horace employs a “poetics of disguise and infiltration” in his engagement with these other genres. At times, he assimilates his lyric persona to an elegiac one, claiming to share elegy’s effeminacy and disinterest in politics. Similarly, he draws on philosophical discourse to present himself as too modest for heavy political themes. In both cases, he turns to clothing metaphors to identify the slight persona as a disguise that he may assume or discard as needed. Through this disingenuous self-presentation, he disavows interest in the masculine modes of epic and invective. Read as reflections on Horace’s own infiltration of epic territory, the examined scenes give clues about his motivations: focusing on the characters’ self-preservation amid dangers, he reminds readers of the risks and audacity of his project.

Kenneth Draper is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University. 

Introduction
Chapter One: Women’s Clothes and Trojan Dust: Elegiac Disguise and Epic Infiltration
Chapter Two: The Voices of Moderation: Epicureanism, Stoicism, Metapoetics
Chapter Three: The Voice of Blame: Political and Poetological Invective
Chapter Four: Playing the Other: Bacchus, Disguise, and Infiltration
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index