Talk:Catullus

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Many ancient sources indicate that Catullus was born not `on the Palatine Hill in Rome', but in Verona. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.175.112.5 (talk • contribs) 09:27, 7 April 2004 (UTC)

Translations

I am currently studying Catullus in the AP curriculum. I would like to contribute by posting literal translations of the poems, how should this be organized? There dont seem to be any good literal translations anywhere, and I know that this is what most students are interested in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.191.188 (talk • contribs) 04:08, 10 November 2004 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not a place to copy original sources, or translations of them. In particular, "Mere collections of public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, un-modified wording. Complete copies of primary sources should go into Wikisource. There's nothing wrong with using public domain resources such as 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica to add content to an article. See also Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources." You could probably post your translations on Wikisource, as well; but Wikipedia is also not a free web hosting provider, or a place for original research, so maybe you'd be better off finding somewhere else to post your original work. Russ Blau (talk) 14:23, 3 June 2005 (UTC)
• Also, IMHO Wikipedia shouldn't be a source for lazy students who want help cheating on their Latin translation. campbel2 —Preceding undated comment added 20:57, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• So should the "Catullus #" articles be marked for deletion or is there a community here that could make them useful as appropriate Wikipedia articles? John (Jwy) 18:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oops...before reading this I just went ahead and linked this article to a bunch of the "Catullus_#" pages! So, are we moving them to Wikisource or did someone want to keep them here? Psp 06:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Or you can post your translations at the Catullus Forum which contains many literal translations made by students.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.94.48.243 (talk • contribs) 18:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• in response to campbel2, I see your point, however I believe that was a bit hostile for a response. I am also an AP Latin student, and I have been amalgamating all of my translations onto a Docs.google.com page which is published and hosted by Google. Wikipedia may not be a source for lazy students who want help cheating, but maybe you don't know how frustrating it is to be in the midsts of a hard translation and just get stuck. For the most part copying off of wikipedia will get you nowhere. Latin is not really a class where you can fake the work and then pass the tests. If I were to copy every word that I was assigned, I would fail miserably. I believe that the original poster should direct his eyes to wikisource, and possibly a server such as docs.google.com and add a link to it on Wsource. monkeyman08854 —Preceding undated comment added 02:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

comment by an anon

I moved this from the article:

(This is incorrect. Cicero never once mentions Catullus. He does, however, mention to his friend Atticus that he finds the neoteric poets kinda silly in their use of fifth-foot spondees in dactylic hexameter. I find this rather interesting, for even Homer (8th century BCE) uses this metricl device.) (Left by 24.199.71.216)

It's an interesting comment and worth preserving. 24.199.71.216, if you come back, feel free to edit the article; use the talk page for comments and so forth. Cheers, Antandrus 06:07, 13 January 2005 (UTC)

Catullus' place of birth and Cicero

The belief that Catullus was born on the Palatine Hill derives from a confusion between Gaius Valerius Catullus (the author) and Quintus Lutatius Catulus (the politician and philanthropist). Catulus owned one of the most extravagant villas on the Palatine Hill, which rivalled even that of Crassus for its opulence. Catullus/Catulus is a common spelling error. El barty 17:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've researched Catullus for about a year, I've never found another reference to being born on the Palatine, only that he was born in or around Verona, and died in Rome.

A line of dactylic hexameter where the fifth foot is a spondee is called a spondaic line in greek literature (in latin, a spondaic line is composed entirely of spondees, EXCEPT for the fifth foot). In Homer, an average of 1 in 17 lines is spondaic, mainly as a metrical effect, rather than laziness. Ovid has an average of around 1/32 (probably laziness), Catullus 1/11 (Mostly verified as true literal effects and techniques) and Virgil about 1/400 (because he's too good!). Spondaic lines went out of fashion in Rome, despite their use in the ancient Greek. Interestingly, Cicero's dabbling in poetry was criticised as too heavy handed because his hexameter was almost exclusively spondees (except the fifth foot, of course!). Some say Catullus actually thanks Cicero for not mentioning him in proceedings against Clodia (assuming the traditional identification) in Carmen 49. Cicero may have been criticising the high occurence of 5th foot spondees in Catullus as an attempt to introduce the greek ideals to Rome, and Cicero certainly (at this time) represented the establishment values. Kenneth Charles 10:24 9 April 2005 (EST)

listing below

From the list of carmina below, of which all but one (if a saw it correctly) are dead links, I suppose I am to understand that someone wants to include all his Carmina within Wikipedia. Imho this is not the right place for full-text poetry; it had better be added to Wikisource. Caesarion 16:54, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Wikisource would seem more appropriate for that. --Ben davison 17:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll start transferring the poems to Wikisource as soon as I have time. Someone else could, too, if they really wanted to. :D sophysduckling —Preceding undated comment added 01:00, 4 June 2005

In the interim, does anyone mind if I restore the "list of" carmina? I miss being able to navigate directly by number or name. JMatthews 03:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

This doesn't seem very NPOV: " from writing laborious odes to the reputed beautiful woman to irritating whines about the woman ("illi rumpens"). " "laborious" and "irritating" could be taken out, no? Also "Catullus writes a poem about a person, attempting to sound very upperclass..." Which poem is this specifically? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.93.76.4 (talk • contribs) 23:46, 2 May 2005

Specifically, it's poem 84. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.25.191 (talk) 02:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The poem Catullus uses to make fun of a pretentious person is the one about Arrius. It starts with "Hinsidias" in the Latin and has been translated as "Hambushes, he says, whenever he wants to say 'ambushes...'" sophysduckling —Preceding undated comment added 00:57, 4 June 2005

Works

Hmmm, wandering through the questionable edits by IP 194.154.22.51 I noticed the blanking of section Works on 29 November 2005. I noticed the later addition of section See also, which may duplicate/replace some links in the older Works. Could an expert review/revise? I just want to be sure the material wasn't permanently lost to vandalism. Shenme 10:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquote

When I clicked the wikiquote link, I got 'no quote pages with this name' - does this mean we should delete the link? Adambrowne666 08:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Strange choice of picture

As far as I know, there are no actual, verified images of Catullus in existence, so no picture will be completely accurate, but -- with all due respect -- the current image seems kind of preposterous. It's very difficult to accept this as a reasonable likeness of Catullus, and is fairly distracting to anyone who has a knowledge of the late Republican period. The image depicts a middle-aged man with thick facial hair and a headdress, when the generally accepted fact is that Catullus died at around 30 years of age, and we know that he lived in a time when culturally, it was unacceptable for Roman men (especially young men) to wear long beards or moustaches. (There is also no evidence that Catullus wore a headdress of any kind, and it seems strange to assume that he did, as it was not the fashion of the time.) Maybe this would be a more appropriate picture. Again, no picture will ever be totally correct, I'm just suggesting one that is more in keeping with what a young, Roman man of the late Republic might have looked like. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.171.151.31 (talk) 05:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

I agree, it looks rather more like a portrait of Homer (were it not for the apparent eyesight). Being an obviously inept reconstruction, the picture has no added value, but is misleading instead. I am replacing it with another image which, although it is not a portrait, hopefully captures something of the 'feeling' of Catullus' time and of his poetry. I took it from Wikipedia Commons. Iblardi 20:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the caption of the picture explain why it is in the article: User:capablemachine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.141.119 (talk) 05:40, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice index of carmina

I noticed that User:Byrgenwulf/Catullus is a nice index of the carmina (although some are just links back to this article) that never seems to have gotten integrated into this article. Is that template a good navigational aid? If so, then please use it. -- 199.33.32.40 00:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

On merging Poetry of Catullus with this biography article

There's a merge-proposal notice on the top of the Poetry of Catullus page, and the discussion link goes to this talk page, although I see no discussion on a merger anywhere, so here goes:

I've added substantially to the "Poetry of Catullus" page and also to the biography section of this article. The articles could still be merged, making a rather long article. I think it's probably better to leave the articles separate, which would leave plenty of space in the "Poetry" article for more discussion of the poems (and in more detail). (The two articles could certainly be merged into a large article as well.) My preference would be to summarize the poetry section of the biography article a bit and move some of the more detailed paragraphs over to the "Poetry" article. If the two articles remain separate, that needs to be done. Any thoughts? Noroton 21:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think keeping them separate is the way to go. I agree that as they stand now, they could be merged. But both sections, poetry in particular could be expanded. There's a chunk of stuff that should be added about Catullus and the Novae Poetae/neoteric poetry, as well as information regarding the poetry itself. I've been meaning to do some addition myself, but my trusty ol' textbooks are inaccessible to me at the moment, so I've let it sit on the back burner. It's probably worth making a note that both articles aren't as small as they appear - merely incomplete at the moment. Bitnine 00:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree: keep them separate. To join them would tend to confuse the issue of how much his writings can serve as a source for his biography. Also it makes for difficult categorization when an article about writings is merged with an article about a person. Andrew Dalby 12:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

List of works

I think there should be a list of his works on this page given that there isn't anywhere else eg:

• Catullus 1
• Catullus 2

etc. but i didn't want to add such a big and possibly messy and overwhelming chunk without hearing other people's opinions. Shold we put it here? or on Poetry of Catullus? or a whole new page? or not at all? Storeye 10:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

This article was recently tagged for having a trivia section but I though that a trivia section and a popular culture section were different things? Storeye 04:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Pop culture

I believe Octavian quoted a poem of Catullus during the Rome series ... might be worth mentioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.108.27.104 (talk • contribs) 12:33, 15 June 2007

Priority

I have changed the {{WikiProject Biography}} priority of the article from low to high. Catullus is a major poet. Xn4 17:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Epicurean?

Catullus cannot be called an Epicurean in good faith. Perhaps he fits the commonly understood definition of the word "Epicurean" today, but since the word links to a description of the philosophical movement, it's inaccurate. His poetry is the exact opposite of ataraxia. I'm deleting the word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.119.178.23 (talk) 01:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

poems 18-20 now considered spurious

"Catullus' poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina (three of which are now considered spurious — 18, 19 and 20 — although the numbering has been retained)"

Nope. It is not so that "poems 18-20 are now considered spurious". Quite contrary, the MSS. simply do not contain anything between poems 17 and 21. The gap in the numbering goes back to early printed editions, as some editor inserted three poems there, which he had found in the (IIRC) Catalepton and attributed to Catullus. This insert has later been expelled from the Catullus' text as having been done without a real reason, but the gap in numbering has been retained. Please correct this, the current formulation suggests that the Catullan MSS. do preserve these three poems. 109.243.55.208 (talk) 10:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, what was once called Catullus 18 is now Fr.1, Mynors OCT Catullus, p.106; what was once called Catullus 19 is now App.Verg.Priap.3; and what was once called Catullus 20 is now App.Verg.Priap.2. Fuficius Fango (talk) 10:46, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

modern portrait

I don't have any objections to using a modern portrait, since no ancient image is available. To me, this is like using a 19th-century painting to illustrate an article on an ancient deity, particularly if no ancient depictions survive or are available. How people used the myth later, or continued to think of the writer, has its own significance. However, I do think it should always be clear what kind of representation these are: for instance, "a French Neoclassical depiction of" or "a pre-Raphaelite interpretation of." So it would be good to know something of the artist's intention or the purpose or period of the sculpture portraying Catullus. (The bust was clearly modeled after an individual face.) The image file, however, gives minimal info. For now, I'm just going to note the relevance of the artwork's location. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:23, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Catullus' Mother

In the article it says his mother was "Blandus," but this is a male name in Latin. I don't want to correct it to "Blanda" because I have no idea who Catullus' mother or father was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lejarrag (talk • contribs) 03:39, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Done a bit of digging, and can't find any reference to Catullus' mother's name. It's been waiting for a cite since October, so I think we can remove it. --Nicknack009 (talk) 08:32, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Entry for “Cultural depictions”?

Catullus is an important character in the novel “The Venus Throw” by Steven Saylor, along with Clodia and Cicero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Throw Minicarmen (talk) 02:05, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

List of bibliographies — FLC

Heya! I realize this talk page isn’t super active but I’ve written List of bibliographies of works on Catullus and submitted it to be a featured list candidate and would greatly appreciate any feedback here

On a side note, in the course of my research I’ve come across Talk:Catullus/References which seems to be fairly orphaned — I didn’t include it in the article because Wikipedia doesn’t like citing user-generated content but it’s been identified as a useful list of sources about individual poems (see {{Notable citation}} in the Talk page) that I think easily might have gotten lost in the shuffle (RIP Wikipedia:WikiProject Catullus).

Definitely would appreciate any reviews or feedbacks, and I hope it can be a helpful resource for anyone trying to gather sources! Umimmak (talk) 01:54, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Lead image

Current lead image

My proposed lead image

full engraving, after 19th century statue

19th century statue, the basis (presumably) of the engravings; the poet himself refers to his "little book" of poems in Catullus 1, to which he is here shown gesturing

In my opinion, this is a nicer representation of Catullus than the current lead image. Anyone else have an opinion? 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 11:18, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

What makes you like the proposed image more than the current one? Dantus21 (talk) 15:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The current image seems generic to me: could be a general, a senator, anyone. The proposed image shows the subject as a poet which is what he's famous for, and I also think it's just aesthetically nicer. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 23:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for my late response! I’ll admit that there’s not any portrait of Catullus that has a dominant hand without consensus, as all are non-contemporary depictions. However, I think that based on its recognizability and prominence online, the current lead serves far better as an image for Catullus. That bust has been featured in sites like The Guardian,

Britannica, World History Encyclopedia, and Academy of American Poets. Meanwhile, one could visual match the proposed image, and almost (if not) all the results are misidentifications. In addition, while yes, the proposed image could show Catullus as a poet with the book, it is ultimately still very vague as there are many different types of writers that are not poets, and the book doesn’t necessarily indicate him to be a specific type of writer. Dantus21 (talk) 06:44, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to note that the statue on the left has also been used as a representation of Catullus: an engraving of it serves to illustrate the poet here. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 05:05, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Bit late but honestly that engraving would be a nice picture for the article. Your proposed image is also nice but the angle is a bit weird tbh. Leevine65 (talk) 00:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Lesbia

All of the lesbia stuff, including her attachment to Clodia, is speculation. This article probably needs an extensive rewrite; I might end up creating a "speculation" section.

(Classics has moved on from the position that poetry is automatically autobiographical, and Wikipedia probably should too!) Periferal (talk) 14:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a huge amount of Lesbia stuff, in fact. But of course the article is pretty naive literarily overall. However, the conflation of Catullus the real person and Catullus the speaker in the poems is not just Romanticism run amok. It's that he uses the name "Catullus" at least twenty times in the poems. Reading the poems in translations can sometimes give an unreliable picture of this practice. But there is a Catullus constructed within the poems who has a puella he calls Lesbia, and while as I recall the poet names very few if any women by their real name in the poems, there are several historical figures, such as Calvus and Bibaculus, not to mention Caesar, who put in appearances under their real names. It's possible that naming the person represented by Lesbia was a bridge of invective too far for even Catullus to cross. The decorum for attacking a male peer might be more elastic than for a Roman woman of higher social standing than Catullus himself. Of course, one shoddy assumption some scholars used to make is that all the girlfriends in the poems are to be construed as Lesbia whether they are named as such or not. But the point is that while the search for the "real" Lesbia may be a misguided effort at prosopography (though not idle speculation, if done by a scholar), Catullus himself invites or teases the autobiographical identifications. And sifting the poems for crumbs of autobiography is different from efforts to understand the social setting in which poetry like this was circulated, bearing the names of identifiable personages among the Roman literary elite who were meant to get the jokes – some of which, like 43, are rather opaque without that context.

So I would very much urge you NOT to write a section called "Speculation," which is bound to have the unfortunate consequence of attracting all manner of … speculation. Scholars' evidence-based conjecture has a place in an encyclopedia article, which should represent the range of published approaches and the kinds of questions that have been brought to bear on reading the poems, whether you personally agree with them or not. Mere speculation does not belong; the difference is whether the scholar's view has been often cited or is part of arguments engaged in by other scholars. And classical studies is well inoculated against recentism; T.P. Wiseman on Catullus is not going to be kicked to the curb by a newly minted PhD who can barely read Latin but has published an on-trend article or two.

That said, it's sad that the article doesn't live up to its subject, and you are not alone in noticing the need for improvement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cynwolfe (talk • contribs) 15:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

A rewrite should probably take the form of re-outlining the article and making between the current revision and your proposed one. Since the current structure is, if anything, very skimpy it doesn't feel as if it should be done directly in PROD. Something which goes over his life, poetry, and then into the themes thereof seems more balanced. I fully agree that this is a very important topic which requires work, but also agree a heading § Speculation isn't where to do it. A draft page might be worthwhile too. Ifly6 (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Ifly6 gives far better and more actionable advice than my rambling typing. Catullan studies as a discipline, at least in the form of journal articles, seems to have been in a rather odd place the last fifteen years or so, focused on the exegesis of narrow points and on influences. But A Companion to Catullus (Wiley, 2010), edited by Marilynn Skinner, and A Cambridge Companion to Catullus (2021) might be places to look for an outline of topics. (By the way, it's Apuleius who says that Lesbia was a Clodia, so within the context of Roman literary circles and tradition, the question seems meant to be asked, with plausible deniability as to the answer.) Cynwolfe (talk) 22:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, if the article were just a (non-copyright violation) summary of those companions it would still be far better than the current article. We're lucky in this instance to have reliable and relatively comprehensive sources on this topic where people who really care about it have done all the hard thinking for us. I'd just also want parallel citations where possible (eg Damon 2021 p 8 citing Catull 29.5; see generally Wikipedia:CGR/Guides/Primary sources). Ifly6 (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

That would be an efficient way to go about it. And then other work could be incorporated within that framework. Just a caution to anyone who undertakes this: credit the individual author of the chapter, not the editor. I've been using a recent collection of approaches to a certain topic, and the editors deliberately include scholars who disagree with each other on issues susceptible to interpretation. And re: primary sources, I agree that a citation should rarely if ever be made to a primary source without also citing a scholar pointing to it as pertinent and framing how it applies. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:56, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you to all of you! I'm still new to editing Wikipedia instead of just passively reading it so I wasn't sure what to do about the scholarship that is very much just speculation based on the poetry--which isn't to say that Catullus isn't constructing a "Catullus" in his poetry, just that it's not a reliable source for information about his life.

I'm an active grad student so I don't have a lot of free time, but I will attempt to make a draft article at some point and y'all can tell me how it looks, if that makes sense as an action? Periferal (talk) 17:06, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I also hadn't considered the implications of a "Speculation" heading, absolutely. Periferal (talk) 17:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)