Horace’s Ars Poetica and the Marvellous

Abstract In the Ars Poetica, the only text expressly dedicated to the literary theory elaborated by the Augustan poets, the marvellous, as a problem of aesthetics, is only occasionally mentioned, and every time to limit its admissibility or even to exclude it completely. The scanty presence of the theme in the poem contrasts with the striking visibility that Horace chooses to give, at the very beginning of his text (1–4), to a surrealistic figure, the aim of which is to deter poets from venturing into portrayals in contrast with natural reality.