The Roman poet Horace wrote “Ars Poetica,” also known as “The Art of Poetry.”
The work is formally an epistle, or poetic letter, addressed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso and his two sons. It offers practical advice about composing poetry and drama, including the importance of fitting style and subject to one another, a principle later called decorum.
“Ars Poetica” was written in Latin hexameter and is usually dated to around 19 BC, although scholars have proposed dates ranging from roughly 19 to 10 BC. Rather than presenting a rigid, systematic theory, it moves conversationally through observations about genre, characterization, meter, dramatic structure, and poetic craftsmanship.
Readers often confuse Horace with Virgil because both were major poets of Rome’s Augustan age. Virgil wrote the epic Aeneid, while Horace was especially known for lyric poetry, satires, epistles, and literary criticism. “Ars Poetica” became highly influential in European literary theory, especially during the Renaissance and in later French classicism.