1. Does Quinn’s thesis that Catullus and the neoterics undertook the “writing of poetry as an artistic practice” reduce the neoteric poems to artifacts “that make one statement only, always the same statement”? (Phaedrus, quoted in “The Hermeneutics of the Libellus,” page xxx).
I consider that there isn’t a text out there that exists on one level and makes only one statement. The other layers may not have been in intentional, but even if Catullus had written his poems for one audience, one performance, intending to produce one effect, they would still not be artifacts that made one statement only.
2. What effect did Catullus’ training in ancient rhetorical theory have on his poetry? Should we appreciate his poems in the same manner as we appreciate the speeches of Cicero “with respect to the implied original performance”? (Fitzgerald 6, quoted in “The Hermeneutics of the Libellus” on page xxi).
The context of the original poems presented in performance lend another shade to the possibilities of interpretation. Yes, when considering the poems, scholars should consider what they sounded like to an audience, in a knowledgable crowd, as well as the impression they may have made on a solitary reader.
3. If Lesbia is a scripta puella, “or symbol of the poetic product” (“The Hermeneutics of the Libellus,” page xxx), does Professor Skinner think that the Lesbia poems were never intended for performance?
The Lesbia poems may have been a deliberate cultivation of a persona rather than a outpouring of unbridled emotion, but if that were so, it would make them more likely to have been intended for performance. If you are going to fabricate a love affair, the whole point is that other people watch you do it. It seems possible that just as many of the friendships referenced in the poems were perhaps more aspirational than actual, the grand passion maybe have been a fabrication as well, and would necessitate public recognition.
4. Does Professor Skinner think the reader/listener/performer has an active role in a poem, or is that role limited to extracting the poet’s intentions from the text itself? Upon consideration of her comments in “Catullus in Performance,” consider her comments in “The Hermeneutics of the Libellus” on pages xxxiv to xxxv) regarding the “authorial audience” “defined by the form and intentionality of the text.”
Professor Skinner examines the effect that the poems may have had on the audience, and so consider the audience essential to constructing the meaning of the poem. She mentions Catullus 4, where the audience may have known Catullus’s history and could picture exactly the boat he was describing. Catullus may have crafted or performed that poem knowing what the audience would know, but even if he did, he could still not control how the poem would be received, nor guarantee that everyone listening would have the same level of knowledge.
5. In her discussion of Catullus 16, Professor Skinner says that “[e]rotic versiculi were a contrasting way of relaxing inhibitions” and argues, citing Amy Richlin, that “[s]atire afforded a kind of catharsis for rage and anxiety.” Is erotic elegy a literary form of Freudian therapy to relieve neuroses caused by repression of the “pleasure principle”?
There is an exquisite thrill in having one’s own thoughts expressed by someone else. I think the erotic elegies produce that kind of thrill, one that obviates Tennyson’s distress that he “would that he could find the words for the thoughts that arise in him.” However, the premise of this question rests on the assumption of repression of emotions is common and that it is detrimental. I am persuaded that the first is accurate. In other words, I don’t give credence to the idea that Roman men were stoppered volcanoes of emotion looking for a release of pressure in erotic elegy. I find it more likely that they expressed a common feeling and emotion, and the value came from the thrill of those common emotions being expressed well.
6. Like Shane, I offer a bonus question. Would you teach Catullus 16 in a high school Latin class?
Yes, in translation, with the first and last lines softened.
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