Horace and Seneca Interactions, Intertexts, Interpretations

"This set of fourteen essays is the fruit of a conference held in Heidelberg in 2015 and is an engaging and interesting look at the relationship between these two titans of Roman literature-examining both how Seneca was influenced by Horace and also how they approached the same themes in very different ways. [...] As well as the index and bibliography the book contains a comprehensive bidirectional Table of Correspondences between Horace and Seneca running to twenty-eight pages, distinguishing between verbal and thematic echoes. A huge amount of work has gone into this book and it is a dazzling display of scholarship and intelligent close reading of these two enormous ancient talents. They deserve no less."

"Overall, the collection succeeds in presenting a variety of methodologies to explore the literary relationship between the two authors. [...] The volume is an interesting foray into the experiment of juxtaposing two ancient authors to explore how their points of correspondence might inform our understanding of them. The pair in question, Horace and Seneca, are not a slapdash selection, but one which, despite being traditionally classified in two different categories by literary genre, could be assured of a number of touch points due to their biographical details and choice of literary subject matter. One wonders what might result from other similar pairings or perhaps even more brazen pairings of authors. It is our very own modern Plutarchian project of Parallel Lives - and I look forward to more volumes. "
Yasuko Taoka in: The Classical Review 69/1 (2019), 111-114