January 2010
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113 Reads
Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica
The famous carpe diem in Horace's Ode 1, 11 is a metaphor of the natural world that suggests the "plucking" of fruits or flowers. It also forms the culminating image in a series of verbs that evoke the sensory and natural world (sapio, liquo, reseco). I argue that these verbs also express Horace's literary and aesthetic principles. Therefore, the metaphors in this poem unite images of the natural, sensory, and literary/aesthetic worlds.