Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 09:54:42 -0500 (EST) From: "Jim O'Hara" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Two comments below on the Thornton idea about Catullus 66 and Aeneid 6: Simon Cauchi wrote: >It's nearly 40 years since Agathe H. F. Thornton wrote her article, "A >Catullan Quotation in Virgil's Aeneid Book VI", AUMLA 17 (1962), 77-9. She >argues that there is no incongruity because the Catullan line, if properly >read, is not at all humorous, and Fletcher's reference to Pope is >ill-considered: > [much deleted...] Whether Catullus found cause >to smile at this line is hard to decide, but not important, because he was >translating, not composing himself. This is just wrong. Catullus was both translating, and composing, and is responsible for every syllable and every nuance in his own poem. > The corresponding Greek line could not >possibly have been humrous in the Alexandrine original, because such humour >would have been most irreverent from a poet to his queen. This is wrong too. Alexandrian poets (as we have learned in rather more detail since 1962) were often very playful even when dealing with kings and queens. Much of the rest of the argument, about sorrow etc., is good. Where have I read about how the queen laments the absence of her brother/lover-husband, and that Catullus elsewhere laments the loss of his brother and the (different type of) loss of his lover? Clausen? Scott? Jim O'Hara James J. O'Hara Professor of Classical Studies & Chair Classical Studies Dept. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wesleyan University 860/685-2066 (fax: 2089) Middletown CT 06459-0146 Home Page: http://www.wesleyan.edu/classics/faculty/jim.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
