Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC – ca.

54 BC) was a
Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue
to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus invented the "angry love poem.

Biography

Little is known about Catullus's life. Most ancient sources, includingSuetonius and Ovid (Amores
III.XV), claim Verona as his birthplace. He came from a leading equestrian family of Verona, but
lived inRome for most of his life.

Catullus's family owned a villa at Sirmio on Lake Garda. His father entertained Caesar, then governor
of Gaul. At some point, the poet parodied Caesar and an associate (Mamurra), but later apologized and
was forgiven.

Catullus's friends included the poets C. Licinius Macer Calvus, Marcus Furius Bibaculus, and C.
Helvius Cinna, the orator Quintus Hortensius (a rival of Cicero in the law courts) and the
biographerCornelius Nepos, to whom Catullus' book of poems is dedicated.

In 61 BC Catullus went to Rome and fell in love with the "Lesbia" of his poems, generally believed to
be Clodia Metelli, sister of the infamous Publius Clodius Pulcher. This sophisticated woman, 10 years
older than Catullus, was a member of the aristocratic Claudian family. Their brief affair ended when
Clodia spurned him for Marcus Caelius Rufus, a member of Catullus' social circle and an associate
ofCicero.
In 57 BC he accompanied his friendMemmius to Bithynia, where Memmius served as propraetor.
Catullus served on the staff of the governor of Bithynia, his only political office. While in the East,
Catullus traveled to the Troad to perform rites at his brother's tomb, an event recorded in a moving
poem.

After his year in Bithynia, Catullus returned to Italy, probably settling in Rome and spending the last
few years of his life there. Although his poems contain complaints about poverty, he owned a villa
near Tibur (modern Tivoli).

It is uncertain when Catullus died. Some ancient sources claim he died from exhaustion at the age of
thirty. St. Jerome gives his birth year as 87 BC and wrote that the poet lived 30 years, but some of the
poems refer to events in 55 BC. Since no poem can be dated later than 54 BC, scholars traditionally
accept the dates 84 BC – 54 BC.

His poems were widely appreciated by other poets, but Cicero despised them for their supposed
amorality. Catullus was never considered one of the canonical school authors. Nevertheless, he greatly
influenced poets such as Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. After his rediscovery in the late Middle Ages,
Catullus again found admirers. His explicit writing style has shocked many readers, both ancient and
modern.

Poetry

Sources and organization

Catullus' poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina (three of which are now
considered spurious — 18, 19 and 20 — although the numbering has been retained), which can be
divided into three formal parts: sixty short poems in varying metres, called polymetra, eight longer
poems, and forty-eight epigrams.

There is no scholarly consensus on whether or not Catullus himself arranged the order of the poems.
The longer poems differ from the polymetra and the epigrams not only in length but also in their
subjects: There are seven hymns and one mini-epic, or epillion, the most highly-prized form for the
"new poets".

The polymetra and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups (ignoring a rather
large number of poems eluding such categorization):

• poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation like poem 13).
 • erotic poems: some of them indicate homosexual penchants (50 and 99), but most are about
women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia" (in honour of the poetess Sappho of Lesbos,
source and inspiration of many of his poems).
• invectives: often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems targeted at friends-turned-
traitors (e.g., poem 30), other lovers of Lesbia, well known poets, politicians (e.g., Julius
Caesar) and rhetors, including Cicero.
• condolences: some poems of Catullus are solemn in nature. 96 comforts a friend in the death
of a loved one; several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.

All these poems describe the Epicurean lifestyle of Catullus and his friends, who, despite Catullus'
temporary political post in Bithynia, lived their lives withdrawn from politics. They were interested
mainly in poetry and love. Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have sought venustas, or
charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems. The ancient Roman
concept of virtus (i.e. of virtue that had to be proved by a political or military career),
whichCicero suggested as the solution to the societal problems of the late Republic, meant little to
them.

But it is not the traditional notions Catullus rejects, merely their monopolized application to the vita
activa of politics and war. Indeed, he tries to reinvent these notions from a personal point of view and
to introduce them into human relationships. For example, he applies the word fides, which
traditionally meant faithfulness towards one's political allies, to his relationship with Lesbia and
reinterprets it as unconditional faithfulness in love. So, despite seeming frivolity of his lifestyle,
Catullus measured himself and his friends by quite ambitious standards.

Intellectual influences
Catullus' poetry was influenced by the innovative poetry of the Hellenistic Age, and especially
byCallimachus and the Alexandrian school, which had propagated a new style of poetry that
deliberately turned away from the classical epic poetry in the tradition of Homer. Cicero called these
local innovators neoteroi (?e?te???) or 'moderns', (in Latin novi poetae or 'new poets'), in that they
cast off the heroic model handed down from Ennius in order to strike new ground and ring a
contemporary note. Catullus and Callimachus did not describe the feats of ancient heroes and gods
(except perhaps in re-evaluating and predominantly artistic circumstances, e.g. poems 63 and 64),
focusing instead on small-scale personal themes. Although these poems sometimes seem quite
superficial and their subjects often are mere everyday concerns, they are accomplished works of art.
Catullus described his work as expolitum, or polished, to show that the language he used was very
carefully and artistically composed.

Catullus was also an admirer of Sappho, a female poet of the 7th century BC, and is the source for
much of what we know or infer about her. Catullus 51 follows Sappho 31 so closely, that some
believe the later poem to be, in part, a direct translation of the earlier poem, and 61 and 62 are
certainly inspired by and perhaps translated directly from lost works of Sappho. Both of the latter
areepithalamia, a form of laudatory or erotic wedding-poetry that Sappho had been famous for but
that had gone out of fashion in the intervening centuries. Catullus sometimes used a meter that Sappho
developed, called the Sapphic strophe. In fact, Catullus may have brought about a substantial revival
of that form in Rome.

Style
Catullus wrote in many different meters including hendecasyllabic and elegiac couplets (common
in love poetry). All of his poetry shows strong and occasionally wild emotions especially in
regard toLesbia. He also demonstrates a great sense of humour such as in Catullus 13.

Many of the literary techniques he used are still common today, including hyperbaton: ‘’plenus
saculus est aranearum’’ (Catullus 13), which translates as ‘[my] purse is all full – of cobwebs.’
He also uses anaphora e.g. ‘’Salve, nec minimo puella naso nec bello pede nec…’’(Catullus 43)
(‘hello, girl with a not so small nose and a not so pretty foot and...’) as well
as tricolon and alliteration. He is also very fond of diminutives such as in Catullus 50: ‘’Hestero,
Licini, die otiose/multum lusimus in meis tabellis’’ – ‘Yesterday, Licinius, was a day of leisure/
playing many games in my little notebooks’.

Catullus in popular culture

The epistolary novel Ides of March by Thornton Wilder centers on Julius Caesar, but prominently
features Catullus, his poetry, his relationship (and correspondence) with Clodia, correspondence
from his family and a description of his death. Catullus' poems and the closing section by
Suetonius are the only documents in the novel which are not imagined.

Catulli Carmina is a cantata by Carl Orff to the texts of Catullus.

Icelandic musician and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's 2002 album Englabörn (track listing)
includes the track "Odi Et Amo", setting Catullus's Poem 85 to music.

The new musical TULLY (In No Particular Order), which appeared in the 2007 New York
Musical Theatre Festival, loosely adapts the poems of Catullus while retaining the non-linear
structure of the published edition, exploring his relationships with both Clodia and Juventius,
renamed Julie, and the timeless nature of memory and love.

The English 20th century Poet Louis MacNeice references Catullus in his poem "Epitaph for
Liberal Poets," where he mentions Catullus as amongst the first liberal poets - "Catullus/ went
down young," mentioning him in the context of the death of the individual and recognising his
and the universal plight.

Archiblad MacLeish wrote a poem entitled "You Also, Gaius Valerius Catullus," where he
addresses the poet.

Catullus is discussed in John Fowles novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (1969) as being one
of the fore-most poets on love, sexuality and desire.

HOW DOES CATULLUS READ SAPPHO'S POEM?

And how should we read Catullus' in turn? The most obvious difference is that Catullus
transforms Sappho's homoerotic poem into a heterosexual one - the object of desire is still a
woman but the poetic vision is now male, not female. Where Sappho begins her poem
with phainetai moi ('it seems to me'), Catullus swings round the emphasis to 'ille' - that man -
making the poem far more definite, less illusory, focused not so much on the generic symptoms
of desire but the poet's own jealousy and wish to supplant his rival in Lesbia's affections. For this
reason, scholars often argue that this is the first poem Catullus sent Lesbia/ Clodia, a declaration
of love intended to win her over. There are other more subtle differences. In Sappho, the man
only listens ( upakouei ) to the woman; in Catullus the man also 'spectat' 'looks at' - the woman.
Again, in Sappho, the woman laughsand speaks. In Catullus' version she is permitted only
laughter. Can translators convey anything of the subtleties of these changes? In my version, for
instance, I emphasised the new voyeuristic force of spectat by translating it 'peers at'.
Compare Sisson's 'yet repeatedly/ looks at you' or Whigham's 'watches you'.

1. While Catullus is serving in the Roman army far from Rome, his friends Furius
and Aurelius (line 1) have brought him a letter from Lesbia. Apparently WHAT
is the content of Lesbia’s letter?
2. According to lines 14-16, with what tone does Catullus want his friends to deliver
his oral response to Lesbia?
3. According to the next-to-last stanza, what is Catullus’s message to Lesbia?
4. In the extended metaphor in the last stanza, what are the literal terms of “this
lonely flower” and of “the plough”?
5. Why is Catullus so bitter toward Lesbia?