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First-person poetry is a familiar genre in Latin literature. Propertius, Catullus, and Horace deployed the first-person speaker in a variety of ways that either bolster or undermine the link between this figure and the poet himself. In<em>I, the Poet, Kathleen McCarthy offers a new approach to understanding the ubiquitous use of a first-person voice in Augustan-age poetry, taking on several of the central debates in the field of Latin literary studies--including the inheritance of the Greek tradition, the shift from oral performance to written collections, and the status of the poetic "I-voice." In light of her own experience as a twenty-first century reader, for whom Latin poetry is meaningful across a great gulf of linguistic, cultural, and historical distances, McCarthy positions these poets as the self-conscious readers of and heirs to a long tradition of Greek poetry, which prompted them to explore radical forms of communication through the poetic form. Informed in part by the "New Lyric Studies,"<em>I, the Poetwill appeal not only to scholars of Latin literature but to readers across a range of literary studies who seek to understand the Roman contexts which shaped canonical poetic genres.
E-Book Content
I, THE POET
I, THE POET
n
FI R ST- P E R S O N F O R M I N HORACE, CATULLUS, A N D P R O P E RT I US
Kathleen McCarthy
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2019 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McCarthy, Kathleen, 1962– author. Title: I, the poet : first-person form in Horace, Catullus, and Propertius / Kathleen McCarthy. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019011316 (print) | LCCN 2019013345 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501739576 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501739569 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501739552 | ISBN 9781501739552 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Latin poetry—History and criticism— Theory, etc. | Horace—Criticism and interpretation. | Catullus, Gaius Valerius—Criticism and interpretation. | Propertius, Sextus—Criticism and interpretation. | First person narrative. | Point of view (Literature) | Self in literature. Classification: LCC PA6063 (ebook) | LCC PA6063 .M33 2019 (print) | DDC 874/.010923—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011316
Contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Introduction: Voices on the Page
1
Speaker and Poet 17 Performance and Text 23 Overview of I, the Poet 32 1. Poetry as Conversation
38
Conversation in Propertius Book 1 44 The Ego as Poet? 49 Narration in Poem 1.3 55 Apostrophe and the Elegiac Voice 62 Character and Voice 66 Excursus: Conversation in Catullus 76 2. Poetry as Performance
81
Horace’s Hymns and Dedications 90 Catullan Invective as Performance 113 3. Poetry That Says “Ego” The Propertian Ego in Book 2 137 The Catullan Ego as Writer and Reader The Horatian Ego in Symposium 163 4. Poetry as Writing
134 151 185
Writing and Mediation in Catullus 188 Horace’s Publicly Private Epistles 201 Epilogue: Ovid in Exile Works Cited General Index Index Locorum
229 237 242
218
Ack nowledgments
I have had the great good fortune to be surrounded for the last two decades by an extraordinary community of colleagues, students, staff members, and friends who have given me both t