Library

The structure of the entire poem "Metamorphoses" can be broken down into the following paragraphs: prologue, introduction (the creation of heaven and earth, the four major eras, the legend of the flood), the story of God (Volume 1 to Volume 6), the story of heroes and heroines (Volume 6 to Volume 11), the deeds of "historical" figures (Volume 11 to Volume 15), and the epilogue. Such an arrangement is more or less made in chronological order, but the time of occurrence of many stories is difficult to determine, so the author arranges them according to the nature of the story. For example, the stories in volumes 1 and 2 mainly center on the love of gods, volumes 3 and 4 center on Bacchus and the city of Thebes, volumes 5 and 6 center on the revenge of gods, volumes 6 to 9 center on Athenian heroes, and volumes 9 to 11 center on the love of male and female heroes, etc. "Ars Poetica" was originally an untitled letter in verse. Less than a hundred years after its publication, it was called "Ars Poetica" by the Roman rhetorician and orator Quintillianus (approximately 35-95 AD), and it later became famous by this name. The trustees are Piso, his father and his son. There were many Pisots at that time, and I don't know who it was. According to the content of this letter, one-third talked about drama. One of the three people may have wanted to write a script and asked Horace for advice. Horace wrote this reply and talked about his writing experience.