Catulo

Este artículo intenta demostrar la influencia de determinados pasajes y composiciones del iber de Catulo en Graciliano Afonso (La Orotava, 1775-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1861). Se estudia a este fin la Oda 11 de la obra El Beso de Abibina, publicada en Puerto Rico en 1838, fecha del regreso de Graciliano Afonso a Canarias tras su destierro en América. Se pretende así dilatar un poco más la pervivencia del poeta latino, aunque sea en la modesta vertiente literaria insular.

Catullus's book of poems starts with a small but controversial textual problem: in the second line of the first poem should modern editors write 'arido ... pumice' or 'arida ... pumice' (meaning 'with dry pumice-stone')? This article offers a fresh study of this problem, in the first place by re-examining the evidence available: the witnesses who write 'arido', the quotation of the passage by the fourteenth-century antiquarian writer Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who writes 'arida', and the testimony of Servius. I argue that the evidence of these testimonia is inconclusive, and on their basis alone one could write either form; however, the reading 'arido ... pumice' with 'pumex' used surprisingly in the feminine is strongly supported by the existence of a group of Latin nouns of the third declension the gender of which is also flexible.

This article has appeared in "Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica" 109 (2015), 137-152. The attached file contains a pre-publication version.

'This paper is devoted to three problems regarding the lost Codex Veronensis (V), from which all manuscripts of Catullus famously descend.
  First, it studies the problem of the identity of the Codex Veronensis. Our only piece of direct evidence for its existence is an epigram by Benvenuto dei Campesati that celebrates the "resurrection" of Catullus, that is, the triumphant return of a copy of his poems to his hometown Verona. Most recent scholars have taken this enigmatic epigram to refer to the archetype of the tradition, and they have accepted Campesani's claim that it actually returned to Verona; but both the identification of the manuscript with the archetype and the truthfulness of Campesani's statement have been called into question. This paper argues that the majority view is very likely correct.
  The second part of the paper touches on the notorious problem whether all of Catullus' humanistic manuscripts descend from the Codex Veronensis. It offers evidence that the 'base text' of all of them descends from the lost sub-subarchetype X. However, this evidence does not enable us to eliminate the possibility of contamination from a source not descended from V.
  The third part of the paper puts to the test the old hypothesis that the exceptionally bad quality of the manuscripts of Catullus can be ascribed to V, or at any rate to a very late stage of the transmission. It offers proof that the text started to be damaged extensively at an early date, very likely already in Antiquity.'

An earlier version of the paper was delivered at the international conference 'What Catullus Wrote' in Munich on 21 May 2011. A lightly revised version has appeared in print in the volume 'What Catullus Wrote'.

This paper offers an overview of the protohistory of the text of Catullus, that is to say, of the textual transmission of his poems until the earliest complete manuscripts were copied.

A revised version will be published in the proceedings of the conference.

En este trabajo se propone un análisis de la poetización del vocabulario de la agricultura en el carmen 48 de Catulo. Este recurso sirve al poeta para destacar la frustración del amante, en el marco de la naturaleza dual del epigrama y de las relaciones intertextuales y referenciales que se detectan en el texto.
Abstract: This article proposes that the poetic use of agricultural vocabulary in Catullus’ carmen 48 is related to the frustration of a lover’s experience. The dual nature of the epigram and the intertextual and referential relationships inside the poem contribute to this interpretation.

This article attempts to identify the manuscripts of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, surviving or lost, that once belonged to the library of the Aragonese kings who ruled over Naples between 1442 and 1501.

This article has appeared in "Studi Medievali e Umanistici" 10 (2012) [2015], 211-231. The attached file contains a pre-publication version.

Reviewed by Emilio Zaina, Universidad Nacional del Sur (ezaina@criba.edu.ar) Word count: 1997 words Toda vez que se publica un nuevo libro con el nombre de Catulo trazado en su tapa frontal y con los poemas traducidos y anotados en las páginas interiores, me pregunto si debo añadirlo a mi ya abarrotada biblioteca en la que constan, entre otros, los volúmenes de Ellis, o Syndikus, especialistas que parecen haberlo dicho todo de una vez y para siempre. Tengo en mis manos el Catulo de José Carlos Fernández Corte y Juan Antonio González Iglesias y, después de recorrer cada una de sus páginas, mi decisión es hacerle un lugar en el estante catuliano y acomodarlo entre aquellos gigantes. Semejante gesto se justifica, en principio, por un hecho de gran interés: quienes hablamos y escribimos en la lengua de Cervantes, Rulfo o Borges no contábamos con la posibilidad de consultar una edición moderna y universitaria de Catulo, con una extensa introducción, pormenorizados comentarios y sensible traducción. El libro se abre con una introducción de alrededor de 180 páginas en la que, en primer lugar, se reflexiona sobre la importancia de la literatura anterior y contemporánea en la obra de Catulo con el propósito de delimitar la originalidad del poeta nacido en Verona. J.C.F.C. batalla con cierto escepticismo, especialmente porque del resto de los poetae novi no se han conservado más que escasos fragmentos y porque tampoco es una tarea sencilla establecer las vías por las que Catulo recepcionó el pasado literario. Sin embargo, J.C.F.C. describe y da pruebas de la posición original e innovadora del poeta: exigencia de perfección técnica y autoconciencia estética; la elección de la poesía ligera como centro de la opción poética; una concepción del amor novedosa en tanto escribe sobre un vínculo amoroso singular a lo largo de una serie extensa de poemas relacionados entre sí; el otium como la ocasión para combinar la representación de hechos cotidianos con valores estéticos nuevos; el epilio como un género que implica no solo un conjunto de técnicas formales y narrativas sino una toma de posición ideológica en desmedro de los valores patrióticos de corte enniano. Un segundo apartado se dedica a las biografías de Catulo y Clodia, una oportunidad inmejorable para distinguir las complejas relaciones entre poesía e historia. Que

"While the earliest complete manuscripts of the poems of Catullus stem from the 14th century, it is well known that his poem 62 already appears in the 9th-century Codex Thuaneus (Parisinus lat. 8071). But in fact, Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) also quotes poem 11 from the Thuaneus. In this paper I argue that the information given by Vossius about this codex is convincing, and that he very likely saw poem 11 at the end of this volume when he was doing research in Paris in the 1640s. This has various consequences for our understanding of the manuscript tradition of Catullus.
The paper closes with two appendices. The first one seeks to demonstrate that the Thuaneus was conserved for several centuries until the Reformation at the monastery of Fleury; and the second one argues that an ancient Codex Mediolanensis that Vossius claims to have seen is in fact a chimaera that may have arisen when he asked someone else to collate a manuscript for him."

A lightly revised version of this paper has appeared in Classical Quarterly 65 (2015) 344-354.

Resumen: En este trabajo queremos presentar un estudio de la obra Odio y amo, una traducción de los poemas de amor de Catulo, publicada por Bernardo Cla-riana, poeta y latinista español exiliado a causa de la Guerra Civil española. En él abordamos la vida de Clariana, el ambiente político y cultural en que vivió y la propia traducción: atendemos a la novedosa concepción de la obra de Catulo que nos ofrece, tomando como paradigma de la traducción el Carmen VIII y, finalmente, las ilustraciones que acompañan a los poemas, dibujos del pintor José Vela Zanetti, también exiliado.

En el presente artículo nos proponemos llevar a cabo un análisis desde una perspectiva comparatista de la presencia del tópico literario de la “enfermedad de amor” en la obra de dos autores coetáneos como son Lucrecio y Catulo. Este análisis nos permitirá, no sólo conocer mejor la manera de pensar de cada uno de estos autores, sino, además y más importante aún, mostrar el modo en que el tópico evolucionó con ellos e indagar en las razones de dicha evolución.

El presente trabajo tiene como propósito contrastar el léxico de los poemas de amistad de Catulo con parte del léxico existente en lengua latina para este ámbito de las interacciones sociales.
La hipótesis de trabajo es que los poemas de esta temática poseen un léxico específico que refleja el tipo de relaciones que el poeta mantenía con su grupo de amigos más cercanos. No se pretende, con esto dar una respuesta definitiva a la polémica cuestión del supuesto círculo de poetae novi, sino, simplemente, trazar una línea de investigación que posibilite el análisis de las relaciones amistosas a partir de sus versiones literarias.

Resumo: A poesia de Caio Valério Catulo (c. 84-54? a.C.), por ter como centro a temática amorosa, a vida do adultério, a amizade e a própria poesia, é um ponto chave para tentarmos pensar as complexas relações afetivas que atravessam o universo romano no fim da República. Para além disso, busco neste artigo refletir como esse borrão afetivo é também uma forma de tornar a poética um lugar de constante enfrentamento político.
Palavras-chave: Poesia romana; Catulo; Política dos afetos.

Abstract: The poetry of Caius Valerius Catullus (c. 84-54 BC), because of its thematic emphasis on love, on a life of adultery, on friendship and on poetry itself, is a key point to think about the complex affective relations that cross the Roman universe at the end of the Republic. In addition, in this article I try to reflect on how this affective blur is also a way of making poetics become a place of constant political confrontation.

Publicado en "El hilo de la fábula", Vol. 17, 2017, pp. 163-176. En este trabajo proponemos revisar los presupuestos de neutralidad subyacentes tras la adopción del pronombre de segunda persona plural «vosotros» en dos traducciones latinoamericanas del carmen 37 de Catulo: la de Rubén Bonifaz Nuño (1969) y la de Lía Galán (2008). A partir de la convergencia entre el uso pronominal señalado en ambas versiones y el presente en las principales ediciones castellanas del corpus catuliano publicadas en España entre 1950 y 2008, intentaremos mostrar el curioso contraste generado en los otros dos textos, por la inclusión de ciertos términos propios de la variedad lingüística de sus traductores: tales como la connotación sexual del verbo «coger», en el de Galán, y la presencia del diminutivo «chiquito», en el de Bonifaz Nuño. A su vez, confrontaremos ambas traducciones con el resultado obtenido en otras dos versiones del mismo poema, publicadas recientemente en Chile (Sanhueza, 2013) y Argentina (Marrón, 2012), en las que la inclusión de léxico característico de las variedades de cada país coexiste con la elección morfológica del pronombre de segunda persona plural «ustedes» en lugar de «vosotros». Por último, intentaremos establecer un vínculo entre el fenómeno descripto en estas últimas dos traducciones y el observable en algunas de las publicadas en la primera década del siglo XXI en España –como la de Rosario González Galicia (2002) y la de José Antonio González Iglesias (2006)– en las que el uso del léxico propio de la variedad peninsular impide toda posible inscripción de los textos resultantes en el constructo lingüístico –pretenciosamente– panhispánico denominado «español neutro».

The purpose of this article is to examine the neutrality assumptions lying behind the adoption of the second personal plural pronoun «vosotros» in two Latin-American translations of Catullus’ Carmen 37: one published by Rubén Bonifaz Nuño (1969) and the other by Lía Galán (2008). Although the signaled pronominal use occurs not only in those two texts, but also in the principal Spanish editions of Catullus’ corpus published in Spain between 1950 and 2008, we shall attempt to point at a particular contrast present in those two versions, where the pronoun «vosotros» coexist with lexical elements of the translators’ linguistic varieties: as the sexual connotation of the verb «coger», in Galan’s, or the use of the diminutive «chiquito» in Bonifaz Nuño’s. In addition, we intend to confront both translations with other two Latin-American versions of the same poem recently published in Chile (Sanhueza, 2013) and Argentina (Marrón, 2012), in which the inclusion of lexical items belonging to the translators’ linguistic varieties concur with the morphologic choice of the second personal plural pronoun «ustedes» in detriment of «vosotros». Finally, we shall attempt to link together the interesting phenomenon described in these Chilean and Argentinian versions with the similar trend noticeable in some of the translations published in Spain during the first ten years of the 21st century –as those made by Rosario González Galicia (2002) and by José Antonio González Iglesias (2006)–, where the presence of lexical elements belonging to the Peninsular Spanish variety prevents any possible inscription of the resultant texts in the linguistic –pretentiously– Pan-Hispanic construction designated as «neutral Spanish».

"This paper aims to reach a better understanding of the Neoteric poets by locating them within their social environment.
The Neoterics were writing in Rome around the 50s B.C.E.; today they are taken to include Catullus, C. Helvius Cinna, C. Licinius Calvus, Valerius Cato, and some others. It is debated whether the poets formed a closed literary coterie or a looser group with some shared interests. This paper proposes the slightly different thesis that they propagated values that found a wide resonance among their generation.
There only survive meagre fragments of the writings of the Neoterics other than Catullus. However, it is clear that they wrote refined mythological epyllia that were inspired by Hellenistic models, as well as short personal poems. One of the key themes in the latter, and sometimes even in the epyllia, is the appreciation of the pleasures of life, including love, sex, and good literature. Another common subject is politics and social life.
Remarks by Cicero and Sallust suggest that the hedonistic mindset of the Neoterics was shared by many well-to-do young men in Rome in the Sixties and Fifties B.C.E. It is telling that Epicureanism was notably popular at the time, even though no leading Neoteric appears to have subscribed to it.
Recent interpretations of Neoteric poetry have stressed its use of archaic and Hellenistic Greek models. This paper argues that it was rooted just as strongly in its social and historical context."

The attached PDF file contains the paper as it was delivered on 12 June 2013 at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Israeli Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies. A revised version is being prepared for publication.

"Paolo Cugusi has noted that a Latin elegiac distich conserved on a wall of the Domus Tiberiana (CLE 943 + 1811) contains an echo of Catullus 50, 10. This article reexamines the parallel and concludes that the epigraphic distich does not echo Catullus, but they and a number of similar passages appear to draw on the same stock of Latin poetic idiom, apparently that of Roman funerary epigram. The article also proposes a new supplement for the lost first half foot of the distich, namely ['pax']."

Note: The file attached contains a pre-publication version of the article.

Benvenuto dei Campesani’s epigram "Versus de resurectione Catulli poete Veronensis" is our only source to mention the return of a manuscript of Catullus’ poems to Verona around the year AD 1300. This text describes in enigmatic terms the man who had brought back the manuscript to Verona. Several theories have been proposed as to who he might be, but it remains impossible to identify him with certainty. Moreover, according to the poem Catullus returned to Verona from afar, but in fact this city is almost the only place where his poems had been read during the previous centuries. This paper suggests that in fact Catullus’ text survived in or near Verona, and the return that is described in the epigram never took place.

This paper appeared in Jesús de la Villa Polo (ed.), "Ianua Classicorum. Temas y formas del Mundo Clásico" (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos, 2015) vol. III, 271-278.

"It is not clear how Catullus’ poems survived the Middle Ages. In the 19th and the 20th century a number of scholars tried to solve this problem by searching for echoes of the Veronese poet in the literature of the Middle Ages. Thus Guido Billanovich identified a series of echoes of Catullus in the writings of the learned Paduan judge Lovato Lovati (ca. 1240-1309). These would prove that there was a Paduan phase in the manuscript tradition of Catullus at the end of the 13th century. Ludwig proved that most of these presumed echoes are illusory, except for one that appeared convincing to him. This article argues that this last echo too should be eliminated, and there is no sign that Lovati knew Catullus."

Follow the link for a copy of the article as it appeared.

The poems of Catullus barely managed to survive the Middle Ages. All surviving copies of the collection derive from an extremely corrupt manuscript, and scholars have been working since the Renaissance to reconstruct the original text. This volume aims to contribute to this effort. Its six authors represent different generations of scholarship and of academic tradition. They here study aspects of the manuscript tradition of the poems and their editorial history as well as contributing directly to the reconstruction of the text. The volume aims to set an example of a collaborative approach to textual criticism, in which significant choices are based not on the judgement of a single authoritative editor, but on the outcome of debate between scholars who represent a broad range of viewpoints.

We put forward a teaching proposal on Gamification for the subject Latin II in
the 2nd year of Bachillerato, an escape room whose narrative focuses on Cicero’s speech Pro Caelio. For a limited time, students, organized in groups, must solve several challenges about the contents of the curriculum: literature (oratory and lyrical poetry), vocabulary, morphology, syntax and the translation of original texts. This teaching approach allows
students to review and consolidate their knowledge in a playful way and it also contributes to develop their communicative skills, rational thinking and digital competence.

"Some time around 1535 Girolamo Avanzi published an innovative edition of Catullus that is very rare today. The edition is known as the editio Trincavelliana, as it has been ascribed to the printer Giovanni Francesco Trincavelli; but I showed in the previous issue of Exemplaria Classica that the volume was printed in Venice by Bartolomeo Zanetti. However, I misidentified its dedicatee, who was Alessandro Farnese the Younger (1520-1589). Avanzi’s preface contains two references that enable it to be dated between late May and mid-August 1535. The title page and the preface show that the volume was intended to include not only the poems of Catullus, but also those of Tibullus, Propertius and Gallus. Some time after the title page and the preface were set to print it was decided only to include Catullus, as is shown by a list of errata in the first gathering. The volume was probably completed in the second half of 1535."

The attached file contains a pre-publication version of the article.

In his note on Georgics 2.95, Servius paraphrases some comments by Catullus on the "uva Raetica", a grape-sort that was grown near Verona. There is nothing of the sort in Catullus' surviving poems. It has been argued that Servius' words reflect a prose treatise by Catullus, and also that they do not reflect anything written by Catullus at all, but we are dealing with a phantom passage that somehow came to be attributed to him. In this short article I point out that the passage summarised by Servius has characteristics that are reminiscent of the surviving poems of Catullus, and I note intertextual references to it in Virgil and Martial. It follows from all this that Servius has probably paraphrased a genuine poem of Catullus' that we no longer possess.

This article has appeared in "Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica" 109 (2015), 153-158. The attached file contains a pre-publication version.

En el presente artículo nos proponemos llevar a cabo un análisis desde una perspectiva comparatista de la presencia del tópico literario de la “enfermedad de amor” en la obra de dos autores coetáneos como son Lucrecio y Catulo. Este análisis nos permitirá, no sólo conocer mejor la manera de pensar de cada uno de estos autores, sino, además y más importante aún, mostrar el modo en que el tópico evolucionó con ellos e indagar en las razones de dicha evolución. ABSTRACT: Our intention with the present article is to analyze from the comparative perspective the presence of the literary thopic “lovesickness” in the works of two contemporary authors as Lucretius and Catullus. This analysis will allow us, not only to improve our knowledge of the way of thinking of each one of these authors, but, besides and even more important, it will allow us to show the way the thopic evolutioned with them and to inquire into the reasons of this evolution.

Resumo: Ao entrarmos em contato com as poesias provenientes do vasto mundo antigo, podemos perceber o seu valor pedagógico associado à sua capacidade de difundir e de reforçar valores sociais, morais, poéticos e políticos. Por meio dos processos de aemulatio e de imitatio, os escritores puderam reivindicar suas autoridades através da mescla entre imitações e inovações, as quais deveriam ser sempre realizadas com aporte referencial na tradição de seus predecessores. Ao analisarmos os poemas elegíacos de dois poetas considerados latinos, Catulo e Ovídio (I a.C./I d.C.), buscamos compreender de que forma a ars poetica romana está presente nesses registros. Tais poetas, ao terem vi venciado o momento fronteiriço entre finais da res publica e início do Principado de Augusto, nos legaram aspectos importantes acerca da imitatio dos predecessores. A nosso ver, a imitação criativa realizada por eles dialogava não somente com a tradição poética de seus antecessores, mas também com a tradição ...

Este texto tem a finalidade de divulgar e observar características poéticas reveladas pela poesia dos poetae noui romanos, entre os quais Catulo é o mais representativo. Assim, a partir da aferição de aspectos relevantes para esta poesia, apresento alguns temas importantes caros a Catulo.

TEXTO DE DIVULGAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA

Resumo: Catulo e Ovídio, poetas latinos que vivenciaram os anos fronteiriços entre finais da res publica de Júlio César e o início do Principado augustano, versaram em seus escritos a preocupação de que seus versos chegassem a outros ouvidos e transpusessem os mares. Ao pensarmos na forma como obras em geral circulavam na urbs romana deste período, pensamos na intrínseca relação entre a palavra escrita e a forma como tais registros foram guardados – ou almejados a se fixar em algum lugar. Tendo em vista tais aspectos, propomo-nos, no presente artigo, a realizar considerações acerca dos processos de circulação e de propagação das obras em Roma ao final do século I a.C. e início do I d.C. a partir dos poemas de Catulo e de Ovídio. A saber, a partir das relações de amicitia e de patronato que, possuindo semelhanças, também possuem suas singularidades e marcações próprias do contexto em que cada poeta pautou suas experiências. 
Abstract: Catullus and Ovid, Latin poets who lived in the years between the end of Julius Caesar’s res publica and the beggining of Augustan Principate, expressed in their verses the intention to reach other audiences and cross the seas. To think of Roman urbs oeuvres circulation in that time allows us to consider the intrinsic relation between written text and the way records were kept – or how they intended for posterity. With that in mind, in this paper we want to address both circulation and propagation processes of oeuvres in general in such period. We study Catullus and Ovid poems examining amicitia and patronage relations, which are alike yet different, as they bring each poet context and experiences.

espanolEste articulo intenta demostrar la influencia de determinados pasajes y composiciones del liber de Catulo en Graciliano Afonso (La Orotava, 1775-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1861). Se estudia a este fin la Oda 11 de la obra El Beso de Abibina, publicada en Puerto Rico en 1838, fecha del regreso de Graciliano Afonso a Canarias eras su destierro en America. Se pretende asi dilatan un poco mas la pervivencia del poeta latino, aunque sea en la modesta vertiente literaria insular. EnglishThis paper attempts to show the influence of some of Catullus’ compositions and passages in his Liber over the works of Graciliano Afonso (La Orotava, 1775-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1861). With this aim, we shall be studying Ode number 11 from El Beso de Abibina, published in Puerto Rico in 1838, just when Graciliano Afonso, exiled from America, returned to the Canary Islands. We hope to show how this poet tried to lengthen the life of Catullus’ Latin lines through his own modest insular contents.

Este artículo intenta demostrar la influencia de determinados pasajes y composiciones del iber de Catulo en Graciliano Afonso (La Orotava, 1775-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1861). Se estudia a este fin la Oda 11 de la obra El Beso de Abibina, publicada en Puerto Rico en 1838, fecha del regreso de Graciliano Afonso a Canarias tras su destierro en América. Se pretende así dilatar un poco más la pervivencia del poeta latino, aunque sea en la modesta vertiente literaria insular.