Talk:Catullus 5

The image

I motion to remove the image from the poem. It is unnecessary. It does not add clarity, relation, nor information to the poem. Kevingamer 23:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Illustrations

Other options for illustration:

What about any of these? Illustrations do brighten up a page and draw in readers. We must pander at times. :) Awadewit | talk 17:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool! I like the first one. It adds an authentic, Roman feel to the page! :) Kevingamer 01:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It's nice, but it's Greek, a "foreign" work for the Romans. It also predates Catullus' poem by over four centuries. Perhaps it's OK, though; Catullus did like Greek poetry and, possibly, other Greek culture; and it's closer in time to the poem than the other pictures. On the plus side, it depicts kissing between "one man & one woman", which is, strictly speaking, the topic of the poem. It's generally conceded that the poet Catullus was male and Lesbia female.

Oops, I just looked at the image and its caption more closely (sheepish). The figure actually shows a man kissing a boy; eromenos is a masculine passive participle, meaning "the male who is made love to." Willow 11:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Original image for Catullus 5.

I'll confess, though, that I preferred the earlier image, primarily because it captures the mood of the poem better than this one. For one thing, it's a modern picture, which engages the feelings of modern readers more than a piece of pottery from 25 centuries ago. Secondly, it's a sweeter and more passionate picture than the pottery, which is more consistent with the poem's mood; the pottery will likely seem stiff and formal for modern readers, who will have seen such works only in books or behind glass at a museum. Indeed, can we imagine any of the couples in the images at the right kissing passionately thousands of times, as the poem describes? Thirdly, the picture shows (gasp!) two lesbians kissing in bed, which, I think, captures for modern readers a hint of the general scandal of fuddy-duddies (rumores senum severiorum) that Catullus says we should scorn. Thus, taken together, the original image conveys the original sentiment of the poem better than the pottery picture, in my opinion.

Original image for Catullus 109.

It's probably just a coincidence, but the only other image you've deleted was the other lesbian image I uploaded to illustrate the Catullus poems, namely, the romantic couple in wedding gowns in Catullus 109. Since the poem is a hymn to life-long love between two people, I thought the image was appropriate — but perhaps you did not?

I agree with Awadewit that images are a good way to illustrate the theme of the poem at a glance; pandering it might be, but they draw readers in, firing their enthusiasm to learn about the poem. So I would be in favor of keeping them, and I hope that you are, too. Then it remains only to decide which images should be used to illustrate the poems. Willow 04:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I did hesitate about suggesting the Greek image precisely for the reasons Willow outlined: it's Greek, it depicts a boy and his male lover, however it does get across the idea of "old" and "life-long love". "Romeo and Juliet" does this as well, I think. Just my thoughts. Klee's image is, of course, more abstract as he is a modern artist. Awadewit | talk 22:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand where Willow is getting at, but I think the older images run into the same problems also pointed out about the Greek pottery thing. Instead of being Greek and depicting two males kissing, the Original images depict two female images kissing and they are modern. Now, from a historical standpoint, at least the pottery captures the Classical Mediterranean idea. I didn't like the original images because they don't provide a good historical or social context because, as Willow said, the were meant to evoke emotion in the reader. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a poetry book. Though I do view the original images as good picks to evoke emotion in readers or to connect readers to Catullus, I think the historical images are more appropriate. Just clarifying. :) Kevingamer 00:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand your perspective as well, Kevin, and I'm sensitive to the WP:NOR issue of imposing subjective impressions of the poem. I'll bow to the consensus opinion in any event, but let me offer the following thoughts about the images, Roman and modern.

We both agree that the tone should be professional and encyclopedic; where we disagree is whether it's better to use a Roman-era image or one that might speak more to modern readers. The key question seems to be whether it's more important to convey (1) the time and place of the poem's composition, or (2) the sentiment(s) of the poem. I concede that the former are more concrete and less subjective, and I dread that someone will say that there is no such thing as a poem's sentiments. But I believe that part of Catullus' enduring popularity is that people in different eras relate to the feelings he seems to describe: warm love and fond friendships, scorn of petty gossip, affectionate play with pets, stormy jealousies, and mixed feelings (e.g., I love and yet I hate.), etc. It's possible that we're deceiving ourselves, that Roman-era feelings were utterly different from modern feelings and only appear similar in language. We can't know for sure, anymore than we can know, for example, that another living human being has feelings akin to our own, or that a dog actually feels pain when it's beaten. But surely it is more plausible to assume that they are similar, no? If so, may we not reasonably look for images that evoke similar feelings in modern readers?

On the other hand, our readers are heterogeneous and the same image may evoke very different feelings in them. I appreciate, for example, that the romantic couple in wedding gowns might provoke, ummm, less sentimental feelings in some people, which might distract from the poem itself. In that sense, it may be a hopeless pursuit to find uncontentious images for many of Catullus' poems. Given our open editing, others may well remove an image or and change it to another that suits their mental picture of the poem better. In my opinion, our principal goal should be to encourage readers to learn more about the poem; a page barren of images seems dry and uninviting to me, which is especially unfortunate for emotionally charged poetry like Catullus'. It's a thorny issue and I haven't resolved it for myself, although talking about it helps. Sorry for arguing in circles, but looking forward to hearing your ideas, Willow 18:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, Willow. You are entering the thorny areas of literary interpretation. What is its role? I am more of a historicist myself. I tend to think that it is our role to instruct readers about the meaning the poem had in the Roman world, which is why I wanted to find a Roman image. That would be my ideal image. But this is not everyone's idea. Some people think that the historical is not as important as what we can get out of the poem now, particularly since we can never actually recover the "true" historical meaning. This school of literary interpretation would endorse your illustrations. I'm not sure who would endorse the Greek illustrations, which came before the poem itself, but there is always someone. Psychoanalytic perhaps? What I can tell you is that even among literary critics there is no agreement on this point, so I hardly expect us to come to some sort of agreement. I'm thinking multiple illustrations? Awadewit | talk 04:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

It is so nice to hear your voice again, especially when it's calling me out of the mirror maze that I seem to have gotten lost in. :) Your idea of multiple illustrations is excellent and hopefully will make the poems' articles better than any single image could. Really sleepy but wishing you a speedy recovery, Willow 06:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Relevance of images?

Can we please stay relevant here? The pictures are totally unnecessary. Wikipedia is also not the place for new research, right? Therefore new representations that are inspired by the poems don't belong here, only canonical or strongly associated images do. You wouldn't take impressionistic photos of people for other topics and place them on other pages. Human behaviour that can be demonstrated, phenomena that is somewhat standard, sure. That means, in wikipedia terms, drawings of oral sex and photos of the spots on a butterfly's wings. Okay. Perhaps appropriate images to put with Catullus could be pictures of the locales in which he wrote, a picture of a sparrow? Yes we read Catullus because we want him to mean something for us, now, whoever we are. However, we can't understand it, we can only make something out of it. Making images out of it, that are unquestionably personal, is going too far. Original artwork should stay on the bathroom wall. I suppose this is the mode through which these things rise or fall- peer review. I vote no thanks. NewMind (talk) 08:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Please consider the themes of the poem: love, ignoring small-minded people, the brevity of life, and lots and lots of kissing. The images reflect that, don't you agree? We have four images of people kissing, which doesn't seem inappropriate, considering the thousands of kisses being discussed. ;) Of course, other images of kissing could've been used; but perhaps these are good enough? We should probably try to find images that illustrate life's brevity and the disapproval of old men. Willow (talk) 09:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

• 
  Alcestis (Roman)
• 
  Dürer-era "death and the maiden"
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  Dance of death
• 
  Two lovers separated by death
• 
  Another two lovers
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  Death and astronomical motif
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  Disapproval of old men
• 
  related image

Meaning of line 5

In this article, line 5 ([nobis] cum semel occidit brevis lux) is said to refer to life itself, however, I believe the Latin text is also consistent with a more literal reading, in which lines 5-6 just say "when the day is over, we should sleep together". This also seems more consistent with line 6 to me, as otherwise it would imply that they should sleep together after they have died. Ucucha 20:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Free-verse translation

Who is the free-verse translation by? It looks modern, so shouldn't be in the 17th C section, and is presumably in copyright! The translation is also a bit free in places, so is not ideal to give the literal meaning of the original. Ben Finn (talk) 18:11, 17 August 2015 (UTC)