(Gr. epistole , Lat. epistula ). A poem addressed to a friend, lover, or patron, written in a familiar style and in hexameters (Cl.) or their modern equivalents. Two types of v. es. exist: the one on moral and philosophical subjects, which stems from Horace’s Es. , and the other on romantic and sentimental subjects, which stems from Ovid’s Heroides . Though the v. e. may be found as early as 146 B.C. (L. Mummius Achaicus’ letters from Corinth and some of the satires of Lucullus), Horace perfected the form, employing common diction, personal details, and a plain style to lend familiarity to his philosophical subjects. His letters to the Lucius Calpurnius Piso and his sons (ca. 10 B.C. ) on the art of poetry, known since Quintillian as the Ars poetica , became a standard genre of the Middle Ages and after. Ovid used the same style for his Tristia and Ex Ponto but developed the sentimental e. in his Heroides , which are fictional letters from the legendary women of antiquity—e.g. Helen, Medea, Dido—to their lovers (tr. D. Hine, 1991). Throughout the Middle Ages, the latter seems to have been the more popular type, for it had an influence on the poets of courtly love (q. v.) and subsequently inspired Samuel Daniel to introduce the form into Eng., e.g. his Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius . Such also was the source for Donne’s large body of memorable v. es. (“Sir, more than Kisses, letters mingle souls”) and Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard .
But it was the Horatian e. which had the greater effect on Ren. and modern poetry. Petrarch, the first humanist to know Horace, wrote his influential Epistulae metricae in Lat. Subsequently, Ariosto’s Satires in terza rima employed the form in vernacular It. In all these epistles Christian sentiment made itself felt. In Spain, Garcilaso’s Epístola a Boscán (1543) in blank verse and the Epístola moral a Fabio in terza rima introduced and perfected the form. Fr. writers esp. cultivated it for its “graceful precision and dignified familiarity”; Boileau’s 12 es. in couplets (1668-95) are considered the finest examples. Benjonson began the Eng. use of the Horatian form ( Forest , 1616) and was followed by others, e.g. Vaughan, Dryden, and Congreve. But the finest examples in Eng. are Pope’s Moral Essays and the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot in heroic couplets. The romantics did not value the v. e., though Shelley, Keats, and Landor on occasion wrote them. Examples in the 20th c. incl. W. H. Auden’s New Year Letter and Louis Mac-Neice’s Letters from Iceland .
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