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Some points concerning Catullus:
He was considered a Neoteric poet, one of the New poets, a school of poets that had been deeply influenced by Greek Hellenistic (not Classical Greek) poetry; two leading Greek figures that inspired this movement were Callimachus and Euphorion. From Callimachus comes a very fine attention to detail, to crafting short, highly polished poems, poems that avoid all epic and epic bombast. From Euphorion comes a non-classical emphasis on drama and emotion, especially that of women. Notice how poem 50 shows how he and his friend Licinius worked at poetry as a hobby. Notice how he describes one poem he composed as a ‘delightful jewel’ -- again, here is the neoteric desire to create a poem that is jewel-like in his craftsmanship.
As I mentioned above, Callimachus rejected any long epics like
Homer’s Iliad; instead poets should write carefully crafted mini-epics, like
Callimachus’ own Hecale, which mix scholarship (including a copious knowledge
of mythology, geography, rare words, etc. ) with fine word placement and and
attention to drama and emotion as well as to rhetorical effect. Catullus’ own
mini-epic was his Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, which is over 300 lines long. Here
is its beginning
Carmen 64 The pine trees erstwhile grown on Mt. Pelion's summit are said
To have floated on Neptune's clear waves to Phasis, Aeëtean land,
When the fittest young men, the glory of Argive manpower, dared
Travel over the sea's briny waters on a rapidly moving ship
As they swept the deep blue expanse with wooden oars,
Because they hoped to steal the Golden Fleece from Colchis.
Athena Polias, holding fast the citadels on the cities' summits
For the Argonauts, made a ship that moves rapidly
With a light gust of wind, joining pinewood frameworks
For a curved keel. The Argo first drenched the virgin sea
With its travel; as soon as it plowed with its beak
The windy sea and the waves, white with spume and spun
In an eddy by the rowing, the maritime Nereids
Raised their faces from the sparkling whirlpool of the sea
In admiration of the sight. The men saw by one and no other light
These mermaids in the nude, standing by their Muses
Out of the sea, and so I sing. Then Peleus, inflamed,
Is carried away in love with Thetis, then Thetis
Does not scorn human marriage, then her father himself
Understands that Peleus must be joined to Thetis.
O heroes, born in a time much desired by the generations,
And kin of the gods, you hail! Good daughter of good mothers,
Hail again! I'll address you often in my song.
Notice how this poem, while repeating an old story, gives fine detail in its mythogical names and geography, in the vivid images that may recall artworks, and has a dramatic, emotion dimension in the love-interest that arises between Peleus and Thetis. The line "Hail again! I'll address you often in my song." recalled the ancient convention of the Homeric Hymns, attributed to Homer, poetry written about seven hundred years before Catullus. The Hellenisitic poets like to ‘recycle’ old poetic forms (like the Homeric Hymns) by writing their own versions of these works. Notice how in 51 Catullus recycles a poem by Sappho, and adds his own ending about the effects of idleness. The translation in your book is poor, here is a somewhat better one.
Carmen 51 (English)
That man seems to me to be equal to a god,
That man, if it is lawful to say, seems to surpass the gods,
who sitting opposite to you repeatedly looks at you
and hears
your sweet laughter, something which robs me
of all feelings: for as soon as I look
at you, Lesbia, no voice remains in my mouth.
But the tongue is paralyzed, a fine fire
spreads down through my limbs, the ears ring with their
very own sound, both my eyes are veiled in darkness.
Idleness, Catullus, is your trouble;
idleness is what delights you and moves you to passion;
idleness has proved ere now the ruin of kings and
prosperous cities.
This sort of poetry seen a decadant by many, such as Cicero, who
dismissed these 'singers of Euphorion.' Here is Catullus' response to Cicero.
Carmen 49
Most eloquent of the descendants of Romulus,
As many as there are and however many there have been, Marcus Tullius,
And however many there will be in the years to come
The most thanks to you, Catullus
The least poet of all gives
As much the least poet of all,
As you are the best patron of all.
Catullus is perhaps most famous for his affair, (and poems about that affair) with Lesbia, AKA Clodia. His poetry is ‘countercultural’ in that he, in his romance with notorius woman’ thumbs his nose that common morality.
Poets writing a series of poems about a troubled love affair with a particular person can be found in the poetry of Geometric and Archaic Greece, for example Archilochus and Theognis. . As we shall see later in the poems of Horace, Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid, it seems that a poet must have a difficult lover to write poems about. In these later poets, more so than in Catullus, the point of such poet is not really the woman at all; rather the woman gives the poet an excuse to describe his own emotion. What is also rather shocking in Catullus, and even more so in later poets is how a man seems to allow himself to be subserviant, to be humiliated, to be abused by a woman.
But it is generally thought that, unlike the later poets, that Catullus
is describing his own real feelings, not just assuming a role, as Ovid clearly is.
Catullus shows us everything, from the glorious first days, to a period of doubt, to
breakups and makeups, to the final betrayal and the following hatred, as in this poem
where Lesbia is pictured as a prostitute doing tricks on the street.
Carmen 58
Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia,
that same Lesbia, whom Catullus loved
more than himself and more than all his own,
now loiters at the cross-roads and in the backstreets
ready to peel down the grandsons of the brave Remus.
Especially fine too is 8, in which Catullus vows to get over his
obsession, only to fall back into it as he thinks about her and her love life.
Carmen 8
Poor Catullus, you must stop being silly,
and count as lost what you see is lost.
Once the sun shone bright for you,
when you would go whither your sweetheart led,
she who was loved by me as none will ever be love.
Then there took place those many jolly scenes
which you desired nor did your sweetheart not desire.
Truly the sun shone bright for you.
Now she desires no more: do you too, weakling, not desire;
and do not chase her who flees, nor live in unhappiness,
but harden your heart, endure and stand fast.
Goodbye, sweetheart. Catullus now stands fast:
he will not look for you or court you against your will.
But you will be sorry when you are not courted at all.
Wretch, pity on you! What life lies in store for you!
Who will come to you now? Who will think you pretty?
Whom will you love now? Whose will people say you are?
Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, be resolute and stand fast.
Catullus’ poetry is also about society and friendship and loss. He gives us a view of the elegant, smart, perhaps decadent society of his time. He can be funny, as when he kids a friend about stealing some napkins, or heartbreaking, when he begs his friends for help in his pain (see 38), or sorrowful, as when he recalls the funeral he performed for his brother (101).
Catullus also has little use for the grand political figures, such as Caesar, concerning whom he professes not to care anything about (see poem 93), although (see below) he is not above attacking politicians. What we see in Catullus (unlike later poets) is also an independence. While he dedicates poetry to others, he does not rely upon them to support him. Later elegiac poets will also try to assert this independence.
Also as seen in early Greek poetry (as well as in the poetry of the earlier satirist Lucilius) is what might be called abuse poetry. Catullus raises it to a fine art, as seen on the poem on your handout. Some of it is nearly unprintable in its obscenity, such as the notorious #16. In your handout he attacks a person for his odd method of keeping his teeth clean, and a proteins person who mispronounces is words to sound more elegant (84).