Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:18:51.733Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Erroneous Gazes: Lucretian Poetics in Catullus 64*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Ábel Tamás
Ábel Tamás*
Affiliation:
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues for a ‘reciprocal intertextuality’ between Catullus 64 and Lucretius anticipating the poetic interplays of Augustan poets with the De Rerum Natura. Catullus’ wedding guests (proto-readers), Ariadne (proto-Narcissus), and Aegeus (proto-Dido) are interpreted here as errantes in the Lucretian sense: through their erroneous gazes presented in Poem 64, they all exemplify how not to gaze at the structure of the universe. In the Lucretio-Catullan intertextual space — generated, as it seems, by the Catullan text — a reciprocal way of reading emerges: while, on the one hand, ‘Catullus’ uses ‘Lucretius’ to show that the aesthetic experience he offers is dependent upon an erroneous, unLucretian gaze/reading which deprives us of the external spectator position, ‘Lucretius’, on the other hand, uses ‘Catullan’ characters as deterrent examples in order to teach us how not to submerge in ‘Catullus’ poetics of illusion’.

Keywords

CatullusLucretiusintertextualityLucretian receptionsillusionepic gazeVergilOvid
Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 106 , November 2016 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

For their many helpful comments and suggestions I am very grateful to Professor Philip Hardie and to my three anonymous referees at JRS, as well as to the attentive audience of a lecture which I gave last year at the Hungarian Classical Association in Budapest. All of them have incited me — in the end, successfully — to rethink my original idea about reciprocal intertextuality between Lucretius and Catullus 64; this is something for which I am enormously grateful. Furthermore, for their readiness in polishing my English, my special thanks are due to Andrea Timár and Ádám Rung. Unless otherwise noted, the following critical editions and translations will be used: Catullus: Fordyce 1961 (Mynors’ text) and Green 2005; Lucretius: Bailey 1947 and Smith 2001; Vergil: Mynors 1972 and Fairclough 1999. In the case of Ovid, I shall use the translations included in Ovid's Poetics of Illusion (Hardie 2002).

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, D. 1995: ‘The impossibility of metathesis: Philodemus and Lucretius on form and content in poetry’, in Obbink, D. (ed.), Philodemus and Poetry. Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace, Oxford, 210–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, C. (ed.) 1947: Lucretius: De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Edited with Commentary), Vols I–III, Oxford Google Scholar
Blumenberg, H. 1997 (1979): Shipwreck with Spectator. Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence, trans. Rendall, S., Cambridge, MA Google Scholar
Bradley, M. 2009: Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome, Cambridge Google Scholar
Butler, S., and Purves, A. (eds) 2013: Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses, Durham Google Scholar
Catrein, C. 2003: Vertauschte Sinne. Untersuchungen zur Synästhesie in der römischen Dichtung, München CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Lacy, P. 1964: ‘Distant views: the imagery of Lucretius 2’, The Classical Journal 60, 49–55 Google Scholar
Edmunds, L. 2001: Intertextuality and the Reading of Roman Poetry, Baltimore, MD Google Scholar
Fairclough, R. H. (trans.) 1999: Virgil: Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid I–VI, revised by Goold, G. P., Cambridge, MA/London Google Scholar
Ferenczi, A. 2010: Vergilius harmadik évezrede, Budapest Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, W. 1995: Catullan Provocations. Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position, Berkeley, CA CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fordyce, C. J. 1961: Catullus. A Commentary, Oxford Google Scholar
Fowler, D. 2000 (1997): ‘On the shoulders of giants: intertextuality and classical studies’, in Roman Constructions. Readings in Postmodern Latin, Oxford, 115–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, D. 2002: Lucretius on Atomic Motion. A Commentary on De Rerum Natura Book II.1–332, Oxford Google Scholar
Frank, T. 1933: ‘The mutual borrowings of Catullus and Lucretius and what they imply’, Classical Philology 28, 249–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaisser, J. H. 2007 (1995): ‘Threads in the labyrinth: competing views and voices in Catullus 64’, in Gaisser, J. H. (ed.), Catullus. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, Oxford, 217–58Google Scholar
Gale, M. R. 1994: Myth and Poetry in Lucretius, Cambridge Google Scholar
Gale, M. R. 2004: Virgil on the Nature of Things. The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition, Cambridge Google Scholar
Gale, M. R. 2007: ‘Lucretius and previous poetic traditions’, in Gillespie, S. and Hardie, P. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, Cambridge, 59–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giesecke, A. L. 2000: Atoms, Ataraxy, and Allusion. Cross-generic Imitation of the De Rerum Natura in Early Augustan Poetry, Hildesheim Google Scholar
Green, P. 2005 (trans.): The Poems of Catullus. A Bilingual Edition, Berkeley, CA Google Scholar
Hardie, P. 1986: Virgil's Aeneid. Cosmos and Imperium, Oxford Google Scholar
Hardie, P. 2002: Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, Cambridge Google Scholar
Hardie, P. 2007: ‘Lucretius and later Latin literature in antiquity’, in Gillespie, S. and Hardie, P. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, Cambridge, 111–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardie, P. 2009: Lucretian Receptions. History, the Sublime, Knowledge, Cambridge Google Scholar
Heil, A. 2007: ‘Der vergessende und vergessene Held: Theseus und das Problem der memoria in Catulls carm. 64’, in Tar, I. (ed.), Klassizismus und Modernität, Szeged, 59–68 Google Scholar
Krupp, J. 2009: Distanz und Bedeutung. Ovids Metamorphosen und die Frage der Ironie, Heidelberg Google Scholar
Laird, A. 1993: ‘Sounding out ecphrasis: art and text in Catullus 64’, Journal of Roman Studies 83, 18–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovatt, H. 2013: The Epic Gaze. Vision, Gender, and Narrative in Ancient Epic, Cambridge CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Möller, M. 2015: ‘Schiffbruch ohne Zuschauer? Beobachtungen zu Hans Blumenbergs Lukrez-Lektüre’, in Möller, M. (ed.), Prometheus gibt nicht auf. Antike Welt und modernes Leben in Hans Blumenbergs Philosophie, Paderborn, 125–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, K. S. 2012: ‘Catullan contexts in Ovid's Metamorphoses ’, in Quesnay, I. Du and Woodman, T. (eds), Catullus. Poems, Books, Readers, Cambridge, 239–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mynors, R. A. B. (ed.) 1972: P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Oxford Google Scholar
Nappa, C. 2007: ‘Catullus and Vergil’, in Skinner, M. B. (ed.), A Companion to Catullus, Malden, MA, 377–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noller, E. M. 2015: ‘ Re et sonitu distare. Überlegungen zu Ordnung und Bedeutung in Lukrez, De Rerum Natura I, 814–29’, in Haß, C. D. and Noller, E. M. (eds), Was bedeutet Ordnung? Was ordnet Bedeutung?, Berlin, 137–72Google Scholar
O'Connell, M. 1977: ‘Pictorialism and meaning in Catullus 64’, Latomus 36, 746–56Google Scholar
O'Hara, J. J. 2006: Inconsistency in Roman Epic. Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan, Cambridge Google Scholar
Porter, J. I. 2007: ‘Lucretius and the sublime’, in Gillespie, S. and Hardie, P. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, Cambridge, 167–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, J. D. 2007: Virgil's Gaze. Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid , Princeton, NJ CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, R. 1994: ‘Common sense in Catullus 64’, The American Journal of Philology 115, 75–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, T. J. 2006: ‘Under the cover of epic: pretexts, subtexts and textiles in Catullus’ Carmen 64’, Ramus 35, 29–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheid, J., and Svenbro, J. 1996: The Craft of Zeus. Myths of Weaving and Fabric, trans. Carol Volk, Cambridge, MA Google Scholar
Schiesaro, A. 2014: ‘ Materiam superabat opus: Lucretius metamorphosed’, Journal of Roman Studies 104, 73–103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmale, M. 2004: Bilderreigen und Erzähllabyrinth. Catulls Carmen 64, München CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, F. M. 2004: ‘Philodemus: avocatio and the pathos of distance in Lucretius and Vergil’, in Armstrong, D., Fish, J., Johnston, P. A. and Skinner, M. B. (eds), Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans, Austin, TX, 139–56Google Scholar
Skinner, M. B. 1976: ‘Iphigenia and Polyxena: a Lucretian allusion in Catullus’, Pacific Coast Philology 11, 52–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. F. (trans.) 2001: Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, Indianapolis Google Scholar
Smith, R. A. 2005: The Primacy of Vision in Virgil's Aeneid, Austin, TX Google Scholar
Tamás, Á. 2014: ‘The morphological metamorphosis of Thetis in Catullus’ Poem 64’, Classical World 107, 405–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Theodorakopoulos, E. 2001: ‘Catullus, 64: footprints in the labyrinth’, in Sharrock, A. and Morales, H. (eds), Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations, Oxford, 115–41Google Scholar
Weber, C. 1983: ‘Two chronological contradictions in Catullus 64’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 113, 263–71Google Scholar