Little accurate information has been preserved about the biography of Catullus. He was born in Verona (Cisalpine Gaul), probably in 87 BC. e. (667 from the founding of Rome), to the consulate of L. Cornelius Cinna (1st time consul in 87, 2nd in 84). Apparently he belonged to the landowners of Northern Italy; it is known that Caesar stayed in his father’s house. In search of a career, he moved to Rome, where he plunged into the frivolous life of young people.
In Rome, he became the head of a circle of young “neoteric” poets, which was bound by ties of close partnership (jus sodalicii), and was distinguished
Especially in iambics, in caustic epigrams and in free poems of a love nature. Among the poet's friends, to whom he dedicated many poems, Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Helvius Cinna were especially close to him. In Rome, his love story unfolded with a woman whom he sang in poetry under the pseudonym Lesbia.
From the works of Catullus it is clear that he had literary connections with the main representatives of the then dominant prose literature - with Cicero, the orator Hortensius, Cornelius Nepos and others, burning, together with Calvus, with irreconcilable hatred of Julius Caesar and throwing at him and his friends the most caustic iambics and caustic epigrams, to which Caesar, according to Suetonius, did not remain insensitive.
His father owned a villa in the Verona region, on the Sirmione peninsula, which juts out from the southern coast into lacus Benacus (n. Lago di Garda) and which is praised by Catullus as the most beautiful of all peninsulas; in addition, he had a villa near Tibur. However, he apparently was not very rich.
In 57 BC. e. he accompanied the propraetor Lucius Memmius Gemellus in Bithynia, an amateur poet to whom Titus Lucretius Carus dedicated the poem “On the Nature of Things.” On the way back, he visited the grave of his brother buried near Troy, whose loss he mourned in the most sincere and truly touching way. After spending about two years in Asia, he returns home by sea, arrives at Lake Benaka and returns to his native Villa in Sirmione. From there, after a meeting with his father, he returns to Rome.
Catullus died very early, barely 30 years old; The year of his death is unknown exactly, most likely 54 or 47 (707 from the founding of Rome). St. Jerome writes that Catullus was born in 87 BC. e. and died in Rome at the age of 30, however, since a number of poems were written after 57 BC. BC, Jerome is mistaken either about the date of birth of Catullus or about his age at the time of death. The latest events mentioned in his lyrics date back to 55−54 BC. e.
Option 2
Biographical information about Catullus is scant. It is known that he was born in Verona, most likely in 87 BC. e..Planning to make a career, Catullus settles in Rome, leads a frivolous life and heads a circle of young poets, among whom they write iambics, epigrams and free love poems. Catullus was especially friendly with Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Helvius Cinna.
There is also a known story about the scandalous affair of Catullus with a woman, whom he sang in poetry under the fictitious name Lesbia.
Analyzing the works of Catullus, it becomes clear that he maintained a literary connection with the leaders of prose - Cicero, Hortensius, Cornelius and opposed Julius Caesar, writing ironic iambs and caustic epigrams. Caesar was very offended by this.
There is information that Catullus in 57 BC. e. traveled to Bithynia with the amateur poet Lucius Memmius Gemella, governor of the province, to whom Titus Lucretius Carus himself wrote the poem “On the Nature of Things.” When they returned home, Catullus visited the grave of his brother, buried near Troy. The poet was sincerely sad about the death of his loved one. Catullus stayed in Asia for about two years. He returned home to his native Villa in Sirmione by sea. After seeing his father, he returned to Rome.
It is not known exactly when Catullus died. They assume that either in 54 or in 47. If you believe the data of St. Jerome, then it is known that the poet was born in 87 BC. e. and died when he was 30 years old. Some discrepancies arise here, because there are verses dating back to 57 BC. e. This means that St. Jerome was mistaken either in the date of birth of Catullus, or in his age at the time of death.
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Catullus Gai Catullus Career: Poet
Birth: Italy
He lived approximately 80-50 BC (maybe later, but there is no data for the period after 30 years). I used the Alexandrian 11-line script, borrowed from the Greeks. He created 116 poems in which he discovered all the known themes of lyric poetry (like Shakespeare after him in drama), after which there were no unknown themes left in the lyrics.
CATULlus, GUY VALERIUS (Gaius Valerius Catullus) (c. 84 c. 54 BC), Roman poet, best known for his short, passionate love poems. Like almost all Latin poets, Catullus is a provincial, he was born in Verona in northern Italy. Probably, his family was distinguished by wealth and nobility, because Julius Caesar visited Catullus’s father more than once, and Catullus himself, although he is scattered with comical complaints about the cobwebs in his wallet, could maintain one villa on Sirmione (a peninsula on Lake Benac, modern Garda) near Verona and the second on the spurs of the Sabine Mountains. In his early youth, Catullus moved to Rome and there, apart from several absences, he spent all the years of his short life.
Young provincial with well connected could make a career in the forum and in court, for all that, Catullus had no practical streak, and he devoted himself entirely to poetry and love. Catullus joined the group of young neoteric poets (i.e., new poets) who mastered some elements of the technique of learned Alexandrian poetry. The two most outstanding poets Catullus considered this group his closest friends: Gaius Helvius Cinnu, the one who accompanied him to Bithynia, and Gaius Licinius Calva, an aristocrat and quite famous politician. Apparently, Catullus perfectly settled into the capital's literary and secular circles, where he soon met the future heroine of his poems, Lesbia. Apparently, in life her name was Clodia, she was the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Caeler, consul of 60 BC, and the sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a personal and political enemy of Cicero. Clodia, who came from an old family, was distinguished by her beauty and frivolity and perceived the brilliant young poet Catullus as another lover, but for Catullus she became a passion and torment for the entire existence. Shortly before 57 BC, already plunged into despair by Clodia's infidelity, Catullus received another sad news: his brother, one relative whom he loved, died in Asia Minor near Troy. In the spring of 57 BC Catullus went to Bithynia, where he languished for a year in the retinue of the proconsul Gaius Memmius, an amateur poet and not too sincere Epicurean, to whom Lucretius dedicated his poem On the Nature of Things. Catullus, obviously, hoped to extract some material benefit from this trip, and yet he was disappointed, and in two poems written upon his return (10; 28), he rudely denounces the stinginess and ignobility of Memmius. While in Bithynia, Catullus visited his brother’s grave and in a touching poem (101) described his ideal funeral rite and solemn farewell to the grave: atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale (and forever now hello, my brother, and farewell). In the spring of 56 BC Catullus left Bithynia on a small ship he had acquired and after this visit to Rhodes, and, apparently, some famous cities of the Aegean Sea, he returned to his homeland, to Sirmion (46; 31; 4). The date of his death has not been established. St. Jerome writes that Catullus was born in 87 BC. and died in Rome at the age of 30, and yet, since the structure of the poems was written after this 57 BC, Jerome misses either the date of birth of Catullus, or his age at the moment of death. The latest events mentioned in his lyrics date back to 5554 BC.
In addition to a few fragments, 113 poems of Catullus have reached us, each from 2 to 403 lines. Three more works (1820) of dubious authorship are omitted by modern editions. The poems are divided into three groups: short ones using a wide variety of meters (117; 2160), longer ones, also different in meter (6168), and short poems written in elegiac meters (69116). Since Catullus himself would hardly have organized his works in such a formal manner, it must be assumed that the collection was compiled by his friends and published posthumously. Apparently, Catullus himself managed to publish a smaller collection, because the first poem, a dedication to his elder friend Cornelius Nepos, directly precedes the book.
Among Catullus's poems, the most celebrated are those that describe the bliss and sorrows of his affair with Lesbia. It is not possible to date most of them, but many were obviously written in their own time. One of the earliest (51), an adaptation of a love poem by the Greek woman Sappho from Lesbos (from Lesbia’s pseudonym), conveys the poet’s surprise at that person, the one who is able to gradually look at Lesbia and judiciously interpret with her: he himself is immersed at the sight of her in complete confusion. The early poems also include a passionate glorification of life and love: vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus (let us, Lesbia, exist by loving the friendship of a friend, 5). Other poems depict Lesbia playing with a tame sparrow (2), her grief over the death of this pet (3), Catullus's torment due to Lesbia's infidelity (58), filling him with conflicting feelings, odi et amo (I hate and love) (85) , bitterness and hopelessness of the poet (11; 8; 76). Many of Catullus's short poems are addressed to friends or aimed at enemies, because Catullus turned out to be equally talented in love and hate. With friends he is sincere and often playful: he jokingly reproaches one for being secretive in love affairs (6), greets another jubilantly upon his return from Spain (9), and sends a funny invitation to a third to dinner (13). Catullus ridicules and reviles his enemies mercilessly; moreover, Julius Caesar did not escape his attacks, although in the end Catullus seemed to have made peace with him. In short poems, Catullus is alternately passionate, obscene, graceful, witty, and soulful, but everywhere he produces a feeling of complete naturalness. Of the larger works, three are especially interesting. A brilliant exotic poem (63) describes the fate of Attis, the young Athenian who sailed to Asia Minor and there, in a fit of religious frenzy, he castrated himself; The three lines in the first person that conclude the poem suggest that this story had some symbolic significance for Catullus. Another work (64) Catullus himself obviously assessed as his masterpiece: this is a beautiful, skillfully composed epillium (poem on a mythological subject) in the spirit Alexandrian school, dedicated to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, with an inserted short story about Theseus’ separation from Ariadne. In another long poem (68), written in a high style but a little incoherently (perhaps it is not really a single poem), Catullus responds to a friend’s request for poetic consolation and talks about his own misfortune caused by the death of his brother and disappointment in Lesbians. Thus, Catullus, almost by accident, created the first Latin love elegy, this unique combination of learning and passion, which Propertius developed after him. The place of his brother’s death, in the vicinity of Troy, must be thought to have prompted the poet to turn to the myth of Laodamia and Protesilaus. In the mercilessly destroyed love of Laodamia for Protesilaus, the one who was the first of the Greeks to die at Troy, Catullus sees a prototype of what he himself had a chance to try. Catullus gained popularity during his lifetime. The poets of the next generation, Ovid and Propertius, call him their teacher in the genre of love poetry; Virgil diligently studied Catullus; and moreover, Horace, who did not at all sympathize with the neotericists, imitated some of his works. Of the later poets, only Martial seems to have been interested in Catullus. Since Catullus, unlike Virgil and Horace, was not included in the circle of authors studied in school, during the imperial era he was read less and less, so that his name is mentioned only by Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Aulus Gellius and a few others. Throughout almost the entire Middle Ages, Catullus remained in oblivion, except that the epithalamium (62) was included in an anthology preserved in a manuscript of the 89th century, and the Verona bishop Rater wrote in 965 that he read Catullus, previously unknown to him. At the beginning of the 13th century. a certain native of Verona was lucky enough to notice an old dilapidated manuscript (probably in the hands of Rather). From this manuscript, which was later lost, two copies were made, from which, in turn, came countless editions of the 15th century. If not for this
Biography
Little accurate information has been preserved about the biography of Catullus. He was born in Verona (Cisalpine Gaul), probably in 87 BC. (667 from the founding of Rome), to the consulate of L. Cornelius Cinna (1st time consul in 87, 2nd in 84). Apparently he belonged to the landowners of Northern Italy; it is known that Caesar stayed in his father’s house. In search of a career, he moved to Rome, where he plunged into the frivolous life of young people.
From the works of Catullus it is clear that he had literary connections with the main representatives of the then dominant prose literature - with Cicero, the orator Hortensius, Cornelius Nepos and others, burning, together with Calvus, with irreconcilable hatred of Julius Caesar and throwing at him and his friends the most caustic iambics and caustic epigrams (57, 93, 29), to which Caesar, according to Suetonius, did not remain insensitive.
His father owned a villa in the Verona region, on the Sirmione peninsula, which juts out from the southern coast into lacus Benacus (n. Lago di Garda) and which is praised by Catullus as the most beautiful of all peninsulas (No. 31); in addition, he had a villa near Tibur (No. 44). However, he apparently was not very rich.
In 57 BC. he accompanied the propraetor Lucius Memmius Gemellus to Bithynia (Nos. 28 and 10), an amateur poet to whom Titus Lucretius Carus dedicated the poem “On the Nature of Things.” On the way back, he visited the grave of his brother buried near Troy (No. 101), whose loss he mourned in the most sincere and truly touching way (No. 65. 68). After spending about two years in Asia, he returns home by sea, arrives at Lake Benaka and returns to his native Villa in Sirmione. From there, after a meeting with his father, he returns to Rome.
Catullus died very early, barely 30 years old; The year of his death is unknown exactly, most likely 54 or 47 (707 from the founding of Rome). St. Jerome writes that Catullus was born in 87 BC. and died in Rome at the age of 30, however, since a number of the poems were written after 57 BC, Jerome is mistaken either about the date of Catullus's birth or about his age at the time of death. The latest events mentioned in his lyrics date back to 55-54 BC.
Creation
"The Book of Catullus of Verona"
In the Middle Ages, the works of Catullus were lost. His only collection was rediscovered in the 13th century in a single copy in his hometown of Verona. The manuscript was lost, but two copies were made from it, from which numerous editions of the 15th century originate.
This collection includes 116 poems, varying in size and number of lines (from 2 to 480). More precisely, the Verona collection contains 113 poems numbered 1-17 and 21-116, because Nos. 18, 19 and 20 were inserted by one of the publishers, and the authorship of Catullus is doubtful and is therefore excluded in modern editions, but the numbering remains.
The poems are arranged in accordance with the ancient principle of “variegation” (poikilia), without any chronological or thematic order, but only according to formal features: first short poems written in different lyrical meters (1 - 60), then large works (61 - 68), followed by short poems written in elegiac distich (69 - 116). One can only guess about the connection between different poems, the sequence of their writing, etc.
- iambic and polemical poems (political epigrams and ridicule)
- lyric poems:
- elegiac and narrative content, written according to Greek models, such as, for example, in imitation of Callimachus, the elegy on the hair of Berenice (No. 66), wedding songs (No. 61. 62) and the epithalam of Peleus and Thetis.
- actual personal lyric poems
In the beginning. In the 19th century, this collection appeared in Russia under the name “Trinkets”, after the epithet “nugae”, which the poet applied to it in the dedication. (From here literary game in the titles of the collections of Karamzin and Ivan Dmitriev: “My trinkets” and “And my trinkets”).
The main themes of Catullus's work
Traditionally, love poems stand out as a special cycle in the poems of Catullus, in which the main role is played by the poet’s relationship with Lesbia (whose real name, according to Ovid and Apuleius, was Clodia). Poems dedicated to her, scattered throughout the collection outside chronological order(3, 5, 7 and especially 51, written in imitation of Sappho) stand at the origins of the concept of romantic love in European culture (according to M. L. Gasparov). The poet's passion gives way to grief and then disgust, which his beloved woman instilled in him with betrayal and low fall (72, 76, 58, etc.).
Several love poems, which have parallels with poems to Lesbia, are dedicated to the young man Juventius (see Poems of Catullus to Juventius).
Another significant group of poems consists of poems to friends and acquaintances: to Calvus, Cinna, Veronnius, Fabullus, Alphenus Varus, Caecilius, Cornificius, Cornelius Nepos, to whom the entire collection is dedicated, Cicero, Asinius Pollio, Manlius Torquatus, the grammarian Cato, Hortensius, etc. The content of these poems is as different as the reasons for which they were evoked.
A huge part of Catullus's book of poems are abusive messages, where the author indulges in streams of not always motivated ferocious abuse directed at enemies or friends. But even in the abusive poems of Catullus there is also a serious component, for example, the message “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo” to his friends Furius and Aurelius, which begins with a playful obscene curse, develops into the most important program poem, where the author expresses fundamental thoughts for him about the relationship between the author’s image and the personality of the writer .
Some of Catullus's poems are short friendly messages in several verses, communicating some interesting fact, significant for the history of Roman literature. Next to them are iambs and epigrams against enemies: Julius Caesar (93), his favorite Mamurra (29), against both of them together (57), against Mamurra under the abusive nickname Mentula - “Member” (94, 105, 114, 115) , against the mistress of Mamurra (41, 43), etc. He had disgust for Caesar, whom he sharply condemns and accuses of all vices, even of shameful relations with Mamurra, to whom Caesar gave the treasures of all the plundered provinces, and this disgust stemmed from how seems not from political beliefs, but out of personal hatred of Mamurra.
There are several more poems inspired by the journey of Catullus, in the retinue of the propraetor Memmius, to Bithynia. His visit there to the grave of his deceased brother gave rise to two poems that breathe a special warmth of family feeling (65 and 68).
Finally, Catullus tried his lyrical talent in sublime odes, such as the hymn to Diana (34), in solemn wedding songs (51 and 52), in the depiction of strong tragic emotions, such as his song about Attis, written by Galliambus (63). He also tried to write elegies in the Alexandrian style (68 and 66), of which one, about the hair of Bernice, is a direct translation of the elegy of Callimachus. He has one poem (64) in the epic genre (the story of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis), also inspired by imitation of Alexandrian poetry.
Style characteristics
He had an extraordinary poetic talent, especially for expressing lyrical feeling, and can be called the true founder of artistic lyricism in Rome. He was the first to apply the varied harmony of Greek lyrical meters to the Latin language, although in this regard he did not reach the strength and classical completeness that Horace showed.
He - bright representative new reduced realistic style. This is evidenced by the themes of his works, the size of the poems (most often the Greek eleven-syllable, close to colloquial speech), vocabulary that reproduces living urban slang.
To this we cannot help but add that Catullus high degree mastered lyrical forms; he was the first to successfully use Greek poetic meter. His language is simple and natural; but in some individual forms and expressions it sometimes resembles antiquity.
Influence
If the importance of Catullus in Roman literature is inferior to the importance of the main representatives of the poetry of the century of Octavian Augustus, this is explained by the dominant Alexandrian movement in his time, which, neglecting the sincerity of feeling and the naturalness of expression, most of all valued the piquancy of the content, the difficulties of versification and the panache of mythological scholarship. Following fashion, Catullus exhausted his strength in playful poems of an epigrammatic nature, in imitation of the learned Alexandrian elegy and the mythological story beloved by the Alexandrian poets. Only where a living, genuine feeling spoke in the poet - as in poems whose subject was love for Lesbia or the death of his brother in a foreign land - Catullus reveals the real strength of his poetic talent and makes it clear what could be expected from him if b he was not carried away on the wrong path by a fashion trend.
Horace, who appeared on the stage shortly after the death of Catullus, waged a systematic struggle against this trend, which was part of the reason why Catullus’s high talent did not find real recognition in the classical age of Roman poetry. Another reason for the lack of attention to Catullus in the age of Augustus was the strongly republican direction of his poems; finally, the consolidation of its significance in the next generation was also prevented by the accumulation of brilliant poetic talents in the Augustan era, which, naturally, relegated their predecessors to the background.
But at the end of the 1st century. AD The importance of Catullus apparently increases. Martial, one of largest representatives Roman lyric poetry, studies Catullus most carefully; Quintilian points out the causticity of his iambics, and in the 2nd century. Gellius already calls him “the most graceful of poets” (elegantissimus poetarum).
“Catullus gained popularity during his lifetime. The next generation of poets, Ovid and Propertius, call him their teacher in the genre of love poetry; Virgil diligently studied Catullus; and even Horace, who by no means sympathized with the neotericists, imitated some of his works. Of the later poets, only Martial seems to have been interested in Catullus. Since Catullus, unlike Virgil and Horace, was not included in the circle of authors studied at school, during the imperial era he was read less and less, so that his name is mentioned only by Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Aulus Gellius and a few others. Throughout almost the entire Middle Ages, Catullus remained in oblivion, except that the epithalamium (62) was included in an anthology preserved in a manuscript of the 8th-9th centuries, and the Verona bishop Rater wrote in 965 that “he was reading a Catullus previously unknown to him.”
The article is devoted short biography Guy Valerius Catullus - one of the greatest ancient poets, whose activities are associated with the name of Caesar.
Biography of Catullus: stages of life's journey
Little reliable information has been preserved about the life of Catullus. Presumably he was born in 87 BC. e. in Verona. He came from the family of a noble landowner. Quite early he moved to Rome, which opened young man great prospects. Catullus was captivated by metropolitan life, and he began to lead a hectic, easy life.
Catullus becomes a member of a circle of young poets and soon heads it. The creativity of the circle participants was devoted to love themes, as well as caustic satire on topical issues. Catullus sharply criticizes Julius Caesar, to which he, however, does not pay any attention.
In 57 BC. e. Catullus, for material reasons, travels through Asia in the retinue of the proconsul Memmius, during which he visits Bithynia. The poet was also able to visit the grave of his brother, who died near Troy. Returning, he visited Rhodes and some other islands of the Aegean Sea. The journey continues for about two years and brings nothing to Catullus, after which he briefly returns to his father and again goes to Rome.
There is also no consensus about the death of Catullus. Presumably they are called 54 and 47.
Biography of Catullus: characteristics of creativity
The Middle Ages destroyed many ancient works of art and literature. Among them, the poems of Catullus were lost. One copy of the poet's collection of poems, found in the 13th century in Verona, has survived. It includes more than a hundred poems, three of which are later insertions, so the authorship of Catullus regarding them is not confirmed. The poet clearly did not compile the collection himself; this was probably done by his friends or admirers of his talent.
The works are political epigrams, messages to friends and acquaintances, and love lyrics; their order does not have a clear structure and is built on formal features.
By topic, researchers identify love poems written by Catullus under the impression of feelings for real girl Lesbia (or Claudia). These works are imbued with deep feeling, which is gradually replaced by pain and hatred under the influence of betrayal and the moral decline of a woman. Love poems are the most powerful part of Catullus's creative heritage. In them, the author’s lyrical talent, greatly enhanced by personal experiences, was most evident.
The messages are often filled with curse words, but at the same time many of them contain serious reflections by the author on philosophical problems. Great place are occupied by short messages of Catullus to close friends with a message about some significant fact.
Political epigrams are mainly directed against Caesar and his supporters. These poems are already full of outright abuse and accuse Caesar of all possible human sins. The absence of any clearly expressed author's position leads us to conclude that there was no political purpose and they were written as a result of personal hostility.
In general, Catullus had enormous artistic talent, which was expressed primarily in love lyrics. Successfully used Greek lyrical meters in Latin. The vocabulary of Catullus's works is close to ordinary everyday speech, reminiscent of urban slang.
The poet became popular at a young age. Many Roman poets of that era considered him their inspiration and tried to imitate him in their lyrical work. Gradually, Catullus's fame declines. In the era of Augustus, he was practically forgotten.
Catullus became the harbinger of the classical era of Roman poetry. He laid the poetic foundations through which Horace could later emerge. Some of Horace's poems were direct imitation of Catullus.