2019

Abstract

This article studies the reception of Catullus in Spanish poetry at the beginning of the 21st century, analyzing especially the intertextual relations of the new poets with the Catullian work.

Keywords: Catullus; Contemporary Spanish poetry; Classical tradition.

Abstract

This article deals with some issues concerning Catullus 7: the relationship with poem 5; its structure and style; the articulation and meaning of the double simile to be found in lines 3-10, and the unlikely belonging of the poem to the genre arithmetikón.

Keywords: Catullus 7; Catullus’ Basia Poems; Catullus’ style.

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of the relationship between Nepos and Catullus in poem 1, using fr. 7 Marshall as evidence of Nepos’ ability to interpret and evaluate in the Chronica the great poets (in this case in point Archilochus) according to the Hellenistic perspective.

Keywords: Catullus; Cornelius Nepos; Chronica; Archilochus.

Abstract

In this paper I aim to introduce some examples of Catullian translations into Piedmontese dialect in XXth century, dealing with their characteristics and their positionin the tradition of the dialect translation of Classics.

Keywords: Catullus; translation; piedmontese; Latin literature.

Abstract

This paper focuses on Catullus c. 76, analysing both its models and its influence on early Imperial literature. As for the models, with special reference to ll. 19-22, we can find Theognides, Sappho, and, more surprisingly, an allusion to Ennius’ tragedies, which is justified by the desperation expressed by the poet in his invocation to the Gods for letting him free from his passion for Lesbia. As for the influence, we find echoes of Catullus 76, with other poems (8, 85, 92), in Seneca’s Epistle 22, where the philosopher exhorts his readers to get rid of their passions, making a comparison between those who depend on their ambition and those who depend on their lover. The peculiar intersection of different literary genres related to Catullus 76 offers an evidence of the richness and complexity of his poetry.

Keywords: Catullus 76; Catullus’ models; Ennius’ tragedies; Catullus’ influence; Seneca’s Epistle 22.

Abstract

The paper focuses on the Catullan manuscript IV F 19 of the National Library of Naples, dating back to the second half of the XVth century. A deep analysis of the document as well as of the corrections and the marginalia to the text of Catullus aims at demonstrating that the manuscript has a notable relationship with the first editions and commentaries on Catullus published in the second half of the XVth century. Then, the ownership note shows that the codex belonged to the private library of the humanist Antonius Seripandus. It is also particularly worth noting that the manuscript is an hitherto unnoticed indirect testimony of the first two fragments of the poet Furius Bibaculus, inserted by the scribe within the text of Catullus’ poems.

Keywords: Catullus; manuscript tradition; Catullus’ text; Catullus’ editions; Catullus and Furius Bibaculus.

Abstract

This paper offers a survey on the literary and political milieu of Catullus: friendshipand politics around Cicero.

Keywords: Catullus; Cornelius Nepos; Cicero and Lucretius.

Abstract

The Catullan narrative of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis is characterised by two particularly evident traits. On the one hand, Apollo’s exclusion as the agent of the wedding paean, as he is substituted by the Parcae; on the other, the dissonance of the song – which announces violence and grief – with its joyous context. Catullus 64 positions itself within a group of texts that consider problematic Apollo’s presence at the wedding, and offers its own solution. Partly belonging to this group is Paean VI Maehler (= D6 Rutherford), a poem that shares some traits with another paean in Pindar’s book (see fr. 64Maehler = F9 Rutherford), in which the gift and the first rendition of the Lydian harmony – in a sad tone – at Niobe’s wedding are also mentioned. As we know, this wedding introduced mournful events, in which Apollo appeared as a vengeful god. Catullus sees this whole tradition through the lens of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, in a passage of which we read, by way of subtle and ironic allusions, that even the pain of Thetis and Niobe stops when the παιάν-cry is heard. Catullus derived the idea of the paradoxical epitalamy sung by the Parcae from this tradition, in which, from his point of view, the two Pindaric paeans had dealt with the theme of the god’s vengeance upon Thetis’ and Niobe’s descendants in a particularly original and incisive manner.

Keywords: paradox; Catullus; Pindar; Paeans.

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the meaning of the word adlocutio in Catullus 38, generally interpreted as consolatio. In our opinion, it is possible that this meaning is more suitable for the consolatory works of Seneca. In Catullus, it seems to express a “poetic gift”, a “literary exchange” between two poets who suffer.

Keywords: Catullus; Seneca; adlocutio; consolatio.

Abstract

The author here reviews several cases of Catullus’ reception in recent Italian poetry, focusing especially on those episodes in which Catullus’ name itself, or a few of his most famous lines, are sufficient to evoke a certain poetic “identity”. He then examines various works in which contemporary Italian poets recall the Catullan figure of Lesbia’s sparrow, or other important moments in the love story between Catullus and Lesbia, or in Catullus’ life, such as his return from Bitinia to Sirmione or his grief on losing his brother. In regard to the reception of the carmina docta, the author gives special attention to Attilio Bertolucci’s verses in La camera da letto. To conclude, the author presents several examples in which a reprisal of a Catullan theme or situation proves especially effective and meaningful.

Keywords: Catullus; Latin love poetry; Italian contemporary poetry.

Abstract

The contribution examines the Epigrammata of Callimaco Esperiente (Filippo Buonaccorsi) and highlights how the entire collection is also affected by numerous Catullian echoes, that manifest themselves in thematic choices, lexical models and several iuncturae.

Keywords: Callimachus Experiens; Catullus; Epigram; Humanistic Literature.

Abstract

The paper offers discussion of, and (in eight cases) new conjectures on, nine passages of Catullus: 11,9-12, 64,43-46, 64,105-111, 64,251-257, 65,15-24, 71, 97,1-5, 98, 99,5-6.

Keywords: Catullus; text; conjecture; corruption.

Abstract

In the last poem of his elegiac cycle the lover poet Lygdamus bides his sad farewell to the unfaithful mistress, Neaera, by recalling the prototypical figure of decepta puella, the Catullian heroine Ariadne of poem 64 ([Tib.] 3,6,37-44). This paper focuses on the intertextual allusions to Catullus in the six elegies of the Lygdamean cycle (opening the third book of the Tibullian corpus) and suggests that the elegiac poet recounts his discidium with the puella Neaera in Catullian terms. By constructing his poetry-book as a Catullian, polite and refined libellus, a love gift and a weapon of seduction, and alluding to the polymetric and elegiac poems to Lesbia that point to the end of the sentimental relationship between the poet and his woman, Lygdamus models his story of passion and infidelity on Catullus’ romantic affair with Lesbia and invites his readers to rely on his love romance to learn how to tolerate sorrow and love pains.

Keywords: Catullus; Lygdamus; Roman elegy; Ariadne; elegy book poetry; discidium; elegiac mistress; infidelity in Roman elegy.

Abstract

This article examines Catullus’ Callimacheanism in the context of both poets’spatial poetics. I survey Callimachus’ representation and construction of geography, focusing on the Hymns to identify Callimachus’ particular approach to place. I examine Catullus’ poems 65 and 67 to demonstrate that Catullus’ use of Callimachus’ spatial poetics varied considerably between poems, and at times showed considerable originality.

Keywords: Catullus; Callimachus; Geography; Spatial poetics; Aitia.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible presence of the text of Catullus in the Rheinland area during the Middle Ages. Next to a new presentation of data concerning a variant to the text of Priscian’s Ars 7,22, where Catull. 37,18 is mentioned, transmitted by the manuscript Coloniensis 202, the paper also investigates the possibility that Catull. 101,1 might be echoed in some verses of the Carmen Cantabrigiense 14, probably elaborated in the same area where Coloniensis 202 was written.

Keywords: Priscian; Catullus; Carmina Cantabrigiensia; Textual Transmission; Imitation.

Abstract

In this short article we try to interpret the passage by Catullus 4,19-21, in the light of empirical data on sail navigation during the Greek-Roman time.

Keywords: navigation; wind; bowline.

Abstract

The collection of the Carmina, composed by Callimaco Esperiente (Filippo Buonaccorsi) in Poland between 1471 and 1476 on the model of the Latin elegiac songbooks, presents important intertextual traces also with the Libellus of Catullus (which are analyzed in this article), as like as what happens in the other collections of poetic love texts of the fifteenth century.

Keywords: Callimachus Experiens; Carmina; Catullus; Poetry of love.

Abstract

From antiquity to the middle of the 20th century Catullus wasn’t part of the canonical Latin authors. Since the end of the 18th century he could therefore be used as a representative of the “other” antiquity and also as a representative of a non-classicist antiquity, especially he could be played off against the traditional teaching of Latin in the German gymnasia. How this worked will be demonstrated by four examples, that were published ca. 1900 in the German journal “Die Jugend”, which gave the “Jugendstil” (“art nouveau”) its German name. Two of them are more or less paraphrasing the Catullan original, the remaining two simulate an exchange of letters between Catullus and the moderns. In this persepctive Catullus provides the keywords for the concept of love, sexuality and literature without moral restrictions.

Keywords: Catullus; Translation; 1900; Jugendstil (Art nouveau); Counter-classicism.

Abstract

In poem 68, Catullus proposes an unconventional vision of the War of Troy, in which the couples Protesilaus/Laodamia and Paris/Helene become the ancestors of the couple formed by the poet and Lesbia. Through this comparison, the betrayer Paris becomes a prototype of the lover, an identity which will be fully developed by Propertius in his Elegies.

Keywords: Catullus; Propertius; Paris; Troy.

Abstract

This paper examines the Catullan adaptations of three New Zealand poets, James Baxter, Karl Stead, and Anna Jackson. The relationship between their English poems and their Roman models is the principal focus, and this relationship is here examined by way of critical readings of the programmatic poems in the Catullan sequences of each New Zealand poet. Provisional conclusions are also drawn regarding the nature of New Zealand’s literary engagement with the poetry of Catullus.

Keywords: Catullus; reception; Latin poetry; Roman Alexandrianism; Modernism.

Abstract

In the context of neo-Catullan poetry Marullo stands out for having given form and life to the castus epigram, in the opposite direction to Panormita’s and Pontano’s production and to obscene poetry, but equally far from Mantovano’s extremely antiseptic, almost sacred compositions. The poetry of Marullo, faithful both to Catullus’ and Petrarch’s models (and also inspired by the vivacity of Plautus’ lexicon), is true, a place of affections and most intimate and real feelings.

Keywords: Marullo’s neo-catullan poetry; Petrarch; castitas.

Abstract

The poet is more sincere than ever precisely when he is less singular. The references of c. 101 belong to long-prepared traditions, which are available to channel the journey to Troy, his own pain, the ritual owed to the dead and the words that must be engraved on the stone.

Keywords: Catullus; Tradition; Journey; Ritual; Epitaph.