If someone came up to you in the street and said "Isn't it paradoxical that the Catullan Martial is not a neoteric Martial?" would you know what he/she meant?Well...would you?
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Thoughts and Observations on the oddities of Latin and Greek, language and culture.
5 comments:
I think you may have explained it to me last night, but the answer is still no.
I don't understand why that has to be paradoxical... I think there are many complexities to Catullus besides the departure from epic, and indeed, he does make attempts at the genre. What specific features make you say it?
(I'm doing catullus this week in survey.)
I think the questioner is suggesting that one's knee-jerk reaction ought to be that it is paradoxical, although there certainly is a subtle case to be made otherwise (in fact, either Coleman or Howell makes such a case).
This knee-jerk reaction is triggered when we attempt to answer the question: Who is the canonical neoteric poet?
It is, of course, Catullus.
I mean, I agree that Catullus is indeed our best example of the Roman neoteric, I just don't think that the term has to be completely synonymous with his name. Catullan does not exclusively mean neoteric. Yes, it's an aspect, but it does not encompass it entirely.
Not a clue. The price of not having a liberal arts education I guess.
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