"Every old poem is sacred"
About this Quote
Horace names a powerful cultural reflex: the instinct to treat what has aged into the canon as untouchable. Writing in Augustan Rome, he watched audiences cheer for the familiar and dismiss new work before it had a chance to prove itself. The claim that every old poem is sacred captures that prejudice with a touch of irony. It recognizes the prestige that accrues as time sifts, but also exposes how age by itself can be mistaken for virtue.
In the Ars Poetica, Horace urges poets to learn from the Greeks, respect decorum, and heed the long testing of time, yet he also defends invention. He allows for new words and fresh combinations if they are apt, arguing that usage, not antiquity alone, grants legitimacy. The line therefore sits at the pivot of his larger argument: tradition is a guide and a resource, not a chain. Sacredness here suggests both reverence and taboo. Old poems have been woven into education, civic memory, and ritualized recitation; they acquire the aura of the temple. But sacralizing them can foster intellectual laziness, discouraging critique and ossifying taste.
The tension is familiar today. Canons are valuable recorders of excellence, but they can also exclude, sometimes confusing endurance with merit. Time can refine judgment, but it can also preserve what power structures favored. Horace’s stance is a double lesson: let the verdict of time carry weight without letting it do all the thinking. Honor the old because it has survived many readers, yet test it anew and make room for work that has not had centuries to accrue authority.
By naming the old poem sacred, Horace diagnoses a habit of mind and invites a more balanced piety: preserve what deserves it, learn from it, but keep the space in which the new might one day become venerable too.
In the Ars Poetica, Horace urges poets to learn from the Greeks, respect decorum, and heed the long testing of time, yet he also defends invention. He allows for new words and fresh combinations if they are apt, arguing that usage, not antiquity alone, grants legitimacy. The line therefore sits at the pivot of his larger argument: tradition is a guide and a resource, not a chain. Sacredness here suggests both reverence and taboo. Old poems have been woven into education, civic memory, and ritualized recitation; they acquire the aura of the temple. But sacralizing them can foster intellectual laziness, discouraging critique and ossifying taste.
The tension is familiar today. Canons are valuable recorders of excellence, but they can also exclude, sometimes confusing endurance with merit. Time can refine judgment, but it can also preserve what power structures favored. Horace’s stance is a double lesson: let the verdict of time carry weight without letting it do all the thinking. Honor the old because it has survived many readers, yet test it anew and make room for work that has not had centuries to accrue authority.
By naming the old poem sacred, Horace diagnoses a habit of mind and invites a more balanced piety: preserve what deserves it, learn from it, but keep the space in which the new might one day become venerable too.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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