A Companion to Catullus by Skinner Marilyn B.;

Author:Skinner, Marilyn B.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2010-11-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Catullan Intertextuality: Apollonius and the Allusive Plot of Catullus 64

Jeri Blair DeBrohun

Catullus’ neoteric masterpiece, his longest and most complex poem, belongs formally to the genre of epic, though its highly compressed quality has led modern critics to assign it to the category of epyllia (“mini-epics”). Insistent on its epic status, however, Catullus 64 demands to be read not only in relation to earlier epyllia (most prominently, Callimachus’ Hecale) and to the similar productions of his neoteric contemporaries (such as Calvus’ Io and Cinna’s Zmyrna), but also as a representative of the epic tradition, with a particularly intimate relationship with his Hellenistic predecessor, Apollonius’ Argonautica, and through Apollonius with the genre’s fount, Homer. The central importance of the Argonautica for Catullus 64 has long been recognized, for Catullus at first appears to be intent upon a retelling of the Argo legend and the related myth of Jason and Medea, and allusions to both stories are prevalent throughout the poem (Perotta 1931; Braga 1950; Avallone 1953; Clare 1996; LeFèvre 2000a). What has not been fully appreciated is just how strongly Catullus marks Apollonius’ epic as his primary model in his opening and how integral a role the earlier poem plays in the structural frame of Catullus 64, as well as in Catullus’ representation of himself in relation to his poem’s narrative. A deeper understanding of the relationship between these two poets will help to explain two aspects of Catullus’ epyllion that have long troubled readers: why does a poem on the wedding of Peleus and Thetis start with the Argo (e.g., R. F. Thomas 1982: 163), and what, if any, Hellenistic precedent lies behind the poem’s structure (e.g., Perotta 1931; LeFèvre 2000a)? The focus of these pages will be on the epyllion’s opening and frame; our conclusions, however, will have implications for readings of the ecphrastic centerpiece as well.

What makes the narrative of Catullus 64 unusual is that the poet-narrator is alternately ostentatiously passive and insistently assertive. The narrative strategy of passivity serves, at one level, to signal the poem’s alignment with the typically impersonal medium of epic, in which the poet’s role is that of a conveyer of tradition rather than the creator of a new story. When, however, that passivity is prominently displayed (as we will see, for example, at the opening of the poem), this signal may carry more than one message. Because the narrator’s (willfully) passive relationship to his poem is so clearly marked, his first-person entrances, most notably through apostrophe, but also through other means of authorial intervention, are highlighted all the more. Catullus further reinforces the assertive nature of these entrances through rhetorical devices such as exclamation (o! line 22; heu! line 94) or emphatic repetition (e.g., neque tum…neque tum…/toto…toto…tota in lines 68–70). The poet’s first-person intrusions can also, however, like his passivity, convey more than one meaning, as his authorial ego itself may echo the words of earlier poets (Gaisser 1995; Wray 2000, on Apollonius).

All of this does not make the Catullan poet-narrator unreliable

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