You quite often see Catullus described as an 'erotic' poetic. However, this does not bear up to close scrutiny.
If you look at his love poems to Lesbia and Juventius, they would better be described as 'romantic': he speaks about kisses, but not in a way you would describe as erotic. In fact, this is precisely why Aurelius and Furius criticised him in The pious poet (Poem 16): he was altogether too 'soppy' in his terms of endearment. His poem to Ipsitilla (Poem 32) is also not erotic as it has humorous undertones which rather undermine it.
When Catullus uses explicit sexual language, he does it not in a erotic context, but in a pugilistic one. Much as we say 'fuck off', Catullus says the same to a number of people he has fallen out with (Poem 16 is a good example of this). In fact, Catullus has more 'hate' poems than he does 'love' ones, plus a good deal of other poems on other lyric themes (friendship, for example), not to mention the non-lyric poems such as Attis and The wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
No, Catullus is basically a lyric poet, not an erotic one.
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2 comments:
It's over 30 years since i studied Latin at school and use a poor transaltion of Catullus to do my homework. The translation meant as little to me as the original. Thank goodness that someone has had the courage to wrestle with the language and come up with an accessible version. Well done!
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