Horace: Selected Odes and Satire 1.9.

Having taken the AP Latin: Literature test with Catullus-Horace, I strongly recommend this book to prepare for the Horace portion of the test. Even though a page may have twice as many notes as actual text, helping with vocabulary and grammar, the book is a manageable size because it contains only those Odes which may be on the AP test. The notes themselves are large enough to be seen, unlike many other texts, and they are numbered by corresponding line in the Latin poetry for easy correlation. With an introduction that describes not only the historical context of the poems, Horace's biography, but also Horace's style of writing, the book ALSO has maps of the places described in the poems--further helping to put the poems in context with the rest of the Ancient world. Moreover, a preface to each ode describes the underlying themes, which is extremely helpful in preparing for the essay portion of the AP test. Of course, besides understanding the context of the poems, students also have to be able to scan the meters of the odes themselves, and the book has a clear and helpful explanation of different meters in the back, listing which poems are written in each meter. Overall, Ronnie Ancona's edition of Horace's odes and Satire 1.9 is an excellent, comprehensive review for the AP test. A final symbol of its usefulness can be seen in the reprinting of each poem in the back of the book, only without notes, so that students can be sure that they will be able to scan, translate, and analyze these odes on the AP test without any help. From Horace's life and style to the themes he writes about, this book covers every aspect of the poetry to help students gain a fuller understanding of this poet laureate of Rome.