Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (Martin Classical Lectures, New Series)

184 Pages·2006·0.53 MB·English

by  Michael C.J. Putnam

Poetic Interplay
MARTIN CLASSICAL LECTURES
■ ■
The Martin Classical Lectures are delivered annually at Oberlin
College through a foundation established by his many friends in
honor of Charles Beebe Martin, for forty-five years a teacher of clas-
sical literature and classical art at Oberlin.
John Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in
the Odyssey
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice
in Hellenistic Ethics
Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual
Critics of Popular Rule
Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost (Reading Simonides of Keos
with Paul Celan)
Helene P. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy
Mark W. Edwards, Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek
and Latin Poetry
Michael C. J. Putnam, Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace
Poetic Interplay
Catullus and Horace
Michael C. J. Putnam
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2006 by the Trustees of Oberlin College
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Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Putnam, Michael C. J.
Poetic interplay : Catullus and Horace / Michael C. J. Putnam.
p. cm.—(The Martin classical lectures)
“Expanded version of the Charles Beebe Martin Classical Lectures, delivered at
Oberlin College in March 2004”—Pref.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12537-4 (acid-free paper)
ISBN-10: 0-691-12537-6 (acid-free paper)
1. Horace—Knowledge—Literature. 2. Helen of Troy (Greek mythology) in
literature. 3. Catullus, Gaius Valerius—Influence. 4. Influence (Literary, artistic,
etc.) 5. Odes—History and criticism. 6. Virgil—In literature. 7. Rome—In
literature. I. Title. II. Martin classical lectures (Unnumbered). New series.
PA6411.P84 2006
874'.01—dc22 2005054516
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Kenneth Gaulin
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Time and Place 11
Chapter Two
Speech and Silence 48
Chapter Three
Helen 72
Chapter Four
Virgil 93
Chapter Five
Genres and a Dialogue 116
Conclusion 141
Notes 145
Bibliography 159
Index of Poems Cited 165
General Index 169
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Preface
This is the first book-length study of the influence of the poetry of Catul-
lus, whose lifespan extended from approximately 95 to 54 BCE, on the
work of Horace, who was born eleven years before his predecessor’s
death and who lived until 8 BCE. It is only a beginning. For one thing,
the book’s primary focus is on the Carmina. There is scant mention of
the Epodes or of Horace’s hexameter poetry, though here, too, the pres-
ence of Catullus is as strongly, if not as universally, felt as upon his lyric
output. For another, the project itself by its nature can never be consid-
ered complete. More allusions will continue to be noted and their rich-
ness explained. Many of the suggestions presented in the subsequent
chapters will no doubt be deepened or rethought. At best, as with any
work of practical criticism, what follows can serve only as one example
out of many ways to approach a subject, scrutiny of which must be ever
ongoing. It will achieve its goal if it stimulates further research into, and
enhances our appreciation of, the extraordinary dialogue between two
of Rome’s greatest poets—a dialogue that has as much to tell us about
the earlier poet as it does about his emulator.
Though this is the first detailed survey of the complementarity be-
tween Catullus and Horace, there have been many individual studies
devoted to particular examples of verbal interaction between the two
poets. These stretch from analyses of individual words to critiques of
whole poems and groups of poems. I have endeavored to acknowledge,
in the notes and in the bibliography, the many debts that my work owes
to previous investigations of the topic. I can only appeal to the extensive
nature of the scholarship involved as excuse for the omissions that will
have occurred.
The book is an expanded version of the Charles Beebe Martin Classical
Lectures, delivered at Oberlin College in March 2004. I am honored to
have been chosen as the sixty-seventh presenter in a series initiated in
1931, and I am grateful to Thomas Van Nortwick and to the other mem-
bers of the Martin Committee for their invitation. The warm, attentive
hospitality of the faculty of the college’s Classics Department and its asso-
ciates in other fields left nothing to be desired, and would have been ap-
plauded by the two authors who form the subject of the pages that follow.
The fifth chapter is an expanded version of a paper, entitled “Catullus
and Horace: Some Questions of Genre,” delivered at the University of
Chicago in February 2004.