Catullus Modern bronze bust of Catullus, Sirmione

Catullus’ Life Warning! -total absence of reliable biographical data! Gaius Valerius Catullus born 85 or 84 BC Jerome who relies on Suetonius, puts it in 87 Father wealthy and prominent citizen of Verona, then part of Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul Part of Gaul located in Italy between the Alpine foothills and the river Po Inhabitants called Transpadanes Father had friendly relations with Julius Caesar Villa at Sirmione at Lake Garda - half-excavated ruins

Le Grotte di Catullo

Catullus’ Life Catullus moved to Rome in 60’s returned to Verona perhaps more than once Love affair with Lesbia, thought to be a pseudonym for Clodia Metelli, from BC emancipated and profligate sister of Cicero’s enemy Publius Clodius and the wife of Metellus Celer, consul in 60 BC, died in 59 Catullus’ brother died in 58 BC, buried near Troy

Map of Italy

Catullus’ Life Catullus spent year on staff of Memmius, governor of Bithynia, (Roman province on NW coast of Asia Minor) in ( the one precise date we have!) Lucretius dedicated De Rerum Natura to Memmius may have gone to leave Clodia and visit brother’s tomb (see poem 101 “A Final Offering at a Distant Grave”), also to acquire money Caesar’s conquests on Rhine in 55 and plans to invade Britain events mentioned in poems 11 and 45 no poem can be dated later than 54 BC, may be year of death

Traditions of Poetry before Catullus Epic Homer, Ennius Long-winded epic Dactylic hexameter meter Patriotic, heroic, impersonal Public audience Rough-hewn narrative Poetry should teach about world Alexandrian/Hellenistic -Callimachus, Theocritus -small scale: lyric, elegy, epyllion (mini epic) -lyric or elegiac meters -private, romantic, personal -coterie poetry, written for set -display of wit, polish, erudition -art for art’s sake; wit; poetry should exist in its own world

Catullus and the New Poets “novi poetae” Social and political upheaval may have influenced circle Poetae novae and in Greek hoi neoteroi “the modernists” Followed in footsteps of Greek Alexandrian poets of third century BC, Callimachus and Theocritus his poetic circle included Calvus, Cinna, and Cornelius Nepos

Catullus’ oeuvre We have just 116 poems of Catullus, varying in length from two to 480 lines, and a few fragments; this probably represents the whole of his published work. Poems 1-60 are shorter pieces, for the most part, written in a variety of meters, on a variety of topics (love poems, attacks against enemies, witty observations on contemporary mores, short hymns), and in a variety of tones. Are known as the polymetric poems

Oeuvre continued 25 Lesbia poems convey happiness and disallusion wrote lyric poems, besides amatory, some satiric, occasional poems, epigrams cameos of friends and enemies, and of chance meetings and sexual encounters Coarse and amusing Poems are longer pieces, again in a variety of meters and on a variety of topics (from wedding poems to a particularly elaborate example of an epyllion or "mini-epic“) Known as carmina docta

Oeuvre continued Others, including his longest (Poem 64), an account in hexameters of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, have mythological themes, but still show depth of poetic emotion. Poems 69ff. are shorter pieces of varying length composed in elegiac couplets — a weightier, more reflective meter than those of poems The subject matter of these poems parallels that of poems 1-60 for the most part, but often in a more somber or brooding tone. This is particularly true of the Lesbia poems in this part of the collection These poems referred to as the epigrams

Textual Tradition Poems of Catullus might have suffered same fate as those of Archilochus and Sappho but for a single manuscript which made its way to Verona early in 14th century Text we use today based on copies of copies of copies of that text which no longer survives

Textual Tradition continued Rude and obscene poetry routinely left untranslated or left out of collections all together in many editions so not to offend

Catullus at Lesbia's by Sir Laurence Alma Tadema,

Lesbia Weeping Over a Sparrow, by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema