Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T17:01:30.564Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Catullus 64 and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: allusion and exemplarity1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

R. J. Clare
Affiliation:
University of Leeds

Extract

The sixty-fourth poem of Catullus, a work which has in times past been dismissed as contrived, is now appreciated precisely because it is carefully contrived. The majority of modern scholarship seems willing, implicitly or explicitly, to look upon the poem's intricacies and apparent contradictions as constituting part of its attraction, acknowledging that artifice does not necessarily preclude art.

The complexities of poem 64 are contingent to a large degree upon its interaction with earlier poetic models. Structural devices of narrative are borrowed from a variety of sources; themes and scenes are delineated so as to reveal their full meaning through reader awareness of other works; literary allusions pervade the text. Perhaps the most salient intertextual feature of Catullus' epyllion is its interaction with previous literary treatments of the myth of Jason and Medea. In this regard, it has long been recognised that a poem of central importance for the reading of Catullus 64 is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, and this present exploration of allusion in poem 64 will concentrate on the intertextual connections between 64 and its Hellenistic epic predecessor.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avallone, R. (1953) ‘Catullo e Apollonio di Rodio’, Antiquitas 8: 875.Google Scholar
Beyers, E. (1960) ‘The refrain in the song of the fates in Catullus C.64’, Acta Classica 3: 86–9.Google Scholar
Braga, D. (1950) Catullo e i poeti Greci (Messina/Firenze).Google Scholar
Bramble, J. C. (1970) ‘Structure and ambiguity in Catullus 64’, PCPS 16: 2241.Google Scholar
Cairns, F. (1984) ‘The Nereids of Catullus 64.12–23b’, Grazer Beiträge Band 11: 95100.Google Scholar
Clare, R. J. (1995) ‘Chiron, Melampus and Tisiphone: myth and meaning in Virgil's Plague of Noricum’, Hermathena 158: 95108.Google Scholar
Clausen, W. V. (1977) ‘Ariadne's leave-taking: Catullus 64.116–20’, ICS 2: 219–23.Google Scholar
Clausen, W. V. (1982) ‘The new direction in poetry’, in Kenney, E. J. and Clausen, W. V. (eds.), The Cambridge history of classical literature (Cambridge) 178206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crump, M. (1931) The epyllion from Theocritus to Ovid (Oxford).Google Scholar
Curran, L. C. (1969) ‘Catullus 64 and the heroic age’, YCS 21: 171–92.Google Scholar
Dyck, A. R. (1989) ‘On the way from Colchis to Corinth: Medea in book 4 of the Argonautica’, Hermes 117: 455–70.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. (1904), A commentary on Catullus (Oxford, 1904).Google Scholar
Fantuzzi, M. (1995) ‘Mythological paradigms in the bucolic poetry of Theocritus’, PCPS 41: 1635.Google Scholar
Feeney, D. C. (1991) The gods in epic: poets and critics of the classical tradition (Oxford).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floratos, C. S. (1957) Über das 64 Gedicht Catulls (Athens).Google Scholar
Fordyce, C. J. (1961) Catullus (Oxford).Google Scholar
Friedrich, G. (1908) Catulli Veronensis Liber (Leipzig/Berlin).Google Scholar
Giangrande, G. (1972) ‘Das Epyllion Catulls im Lichte der hellenistichen Epik’, L'Antiquité Classique 41: 123–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhill, S. D. (1991) The poet's voice (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. D. (1994) ‘The failure of exemplarity’, in de Jong, I. D. F., Sullivan, J. P. (eds.), Modern critical theory and classical literature (Leiden) 5173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmon, D. P. (1973) ‘Nostalgia for the Age of Heroes in Catullus 64’, Latomus 32: 311–31.Google Scholar
Hross, H. (1956) Die Klagen der verlassenen Heroiden in der lateinischen Dichtung (Munich).Google Scholar
Hunter, R. L. (1987) ‘Medea's flight: the fourth book of the Argonautica’, CQ n.s. 37: 129–39.Google Scholar
Hunter, R. L. (1988) ‘“Short on heroics”: Jason in the Argonautica’, CQ n.s. 38: 436–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, R. L. (1989) Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Hunter, R. L. (1991) ‘Breast is best: Catullus 64.18’, CQ n.s. 41: 254–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, R. L. (1993) The Argonautica of Apollonius: literary studies (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, G. O. (1988) Hellenistic poetry (Oxford).Google Scholar
Jenkyns, R. (1982) Three classical poets: Sappho, Catullus and Juvenal (London).Google Scholar
Kinsey, T. E. (1965) ‘Irony and structure in Catullus 64’, Latomus 24: 911–31.Google Scholar
Klingner, F. (1956) Catulls Peleus-Epos (Munich).Google Scholar
Knopp, S. E. (1976) ‘Catullus 64 and the conflict between amores and virtutes’, CPh 71: 207–13.Google Scholar
Konstan, D. (1977) Catullus' indictment of Rome: the meaning of Catullus 64 (Amsterdam).Google Scholar
Konstan, D. (1993) ‘Neoteric epic: Catullus 64’, in Boyle, A. J. (ed.), Roman epic (London) 5978.Google Scholar
Kroll, W. (1923) C. Valerius Catullus (Leipzig/Berlin).Google Scholar
Lafaye, G. (1894) Catulle et ses modèles (Paris).Google Scholar
Laird, A. (1993), ‘Sounding out ecphrasis: art and text in Catullus 64’, JRS 83: 1830.Google Scholar
Lenchantin de Gubernatis, M. (1953) Il libro di Catullo (Torino).Google Scholar
Moreau, A. (1994) Le mythe de Jason et Médée (Paris).Google Scholar
Pavlock, B. (1990) Eros, imitation and the epic tradition (Ithaca).Google Scholar
Perrotta, G. (1931) ‘Il carme 64 di Catullo e i suoi pretesi originali Ellenistici’, Athenaeum (1931): 177322.Google Scholar
Quinn, K. (1973) Catullus: the poems (Glasgow).Google Scholar
Ramain, G. (1922) ‘Sur la signification et la composition du poème 64’, Revue de Philologie (1922): 135–53.Google Scholar
Syndikus, H. P. (1990) Catull. Eine Interpretation. Teil 2. Die grossen Gedichte (61–68) (Darmstadt).Google Scholar
Thomas, R. F. (1982) ‘Catullus and the polemics of poetic reference’, AJPh 103: 144–64.Google Scholar
Vian, F. (1981) Apollonius de Rhodes Argonautiques. Tome III (Paris).Google Scholar
de la Ville de Mirmont, M. H. (1893) ‘La composition de l'épithalame de Thétis et de Pélee et le chant des Parques’, Revue Universitaire (1893): 161–9.Google Scholar
Weber, C. (1983) ‘Two chronological contradictions in Catullus 64’, TAPA 113: 263–7.Google Scholar
Webster, T. B. L. (1966) ‘The myth of Ariadne from Homer to Catullus’, G&R 13: 2231.Google Scholar
Wheeler, A. L. (1934) Catullus and the traditions of ancient poetry (Berkeley and Los Angeles).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, G. W. (1968) Tradition and originality in Roman poetry (Oxford).Google Scholar
Zetzel, J. E. G. (1983) ‘Catullus, Ennius and the poetics of allusion’, ICS 8: 251–66.Google Scholar