1) Although Skinner is summarizing the work of others in this chapter she still has a recognizable presence. How would you characterize that presence and what does it contribute?
Skinner continues to make her presense known through her style of writing, her references to her own work, and her commentaries on the authors. Her style of writing is in the first person, and she mentions in several instances her general opinions on Catullan scholarship. Concerning the “Catullan question”, she comments that it is absurd to imagine that there is only one, and she also brings in some sarcasm towards the end when she comments on how it has taken 150 years to get scholarship on the question to where it is today.
Skinner references her own work on only a handful of occasions, most notably in the beginning, when she declares that she will not take a stand on the question since the overview is for students and she wishes to allow them room to form their own conclusions.
In addition, she evaluates the work of several of the contributers after summarizing their conclusions. While does not declare a verdict for them, her valuation of each’s contributions is inescapable.
2) If we took the liber Catulli as it stands today, and scrambled it, what would be lost?
Ask Gaisser stated in the article last week, each poem can change with the reader and with the context in which it is read. To our benefit or otherwise, the present liber Catulli carries meaning within its structure and changing that structure would lose that meaning. The variation can mean many things and may or may not be unintentional, but a book of Catullan poems in which each topic was covered thoroughly and then abandoned when paint a picture of Catullus as an obsessive who dropped completely a subject when it was done. The jumble of poems concerning Lesbia produces an effect similar to the movie 500 Days of Summer, where it was not the linear progression but the emotional moments that took turns raising themselves in the author’s memory or experience. A liber Catulli that placed the poem concerning his brother at the beginning would take on a different tone than the one where you encounter a grieving Catullus already after you have read him when he was joyful.
While much would be lost, I suspect a similar allotment would be gained. Our impressions of Catullus would be different, but not nonexistent. As we read Catullus and as we form theories about his style, education, and intention, we create an image of Catullus that we have no method of verifying. A different order would merely produce in us a different mental image, one perhaps equally accurate.
3) How would an editor’s arrangement of the liber Catulli be recognizably different from the author’s arrangement?
We may or may not know the author’s arrangement, so the present arrangement might, in fact, be an editor’s arrangement. But for the purposes of this question, it would depend on the editor. If you imagine that each scholarly contributor to the Catullan question was instead the editor of the poems instead of their analyst, I suppose some of the editors would place them in chronological order. Some ad hoc editors would group them thematically. At least one would amuse himself by arrange the poems by theme so the scheme resembles that of elegiac meter. And considering the state of other collections from around that time in history, at least one editor would put them in descending order of length.
4) Schmidt veiws 9, 12, and 13 as a “structural pivot” and part of an “architectonic design.” How do you evaluate this claim? (Yes, you can interpret this question in a couple of different ways… Take your pick.)
To evaluate the claim, you would first determine what precisely Schmidt intends by his criticism. Once that is determined, you would look at the other poems that resemble 9,12, and 13 and examine them for similar characteristics, and then look at the overarching design to see if the nature of collection truly hinges on those poems.
5) Let’s pretend that authorial intent for the present grouping and ordering of Catullus were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt tomorrow. What would the scholarly community do with that information? What would be the next intellectual step? In particular, how do you think our understanding of 51 would change?
The scholarly community, once it was convinced that the order was intentional, would then proceed to theorize as to the reasons behind the order of the poems. The next intellectual step might be to reexamine other poets and their works, to see if anyone else used a similar chaotic pattern. As for Poem 51, the otium stanza is presently occasionally discounted by scholars owing to the possibility that its placement is not deliberate. Were it known to be deliberate, it might be taken as a change of direction, a moment of self-flagellation, or a moment when Catullus give himself to self-loathing.
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