Class Syllabus

NB:  Horace’s Birthday Party will take place on December 8th; save the date!
 
9/4:  Introduction to Lyric
 

9/6:  Latin Rhythms:  workshop on quantity and scansion.

Primary Readings: Sappho 31 (in English), Catullus 51

Secondary Readings:  D.S. Raven, Latin Metre, p. 17-21, Halporn p. 3-10, 59-67; T.P. Wiseman, ‘The poet and his audience,’ in Catullus and his world: a reappraisal, Cambridge Univ. Press 1985, 124-129.

 

9/11 and 9/13:  Wedding songs

Primary Readings:
Sappho (epithalamia, in English)

Catullus 62 (all), 64.328-381 (wedding hymn of the Fates)

Secondary reading:  T.P. Wiseman, ‘The Transpadane background’ and ‘The beauty of innocence,’ in Catullus and his world, 107-124.

 

9/18:  Lyric love poems

Primary Readings:
Plautus, Cistellaria 203-228

Catullus 24, 8, 70, 72, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87

Secondary reading:  Steele Commager, from The Odes of Horace: A critical study, Yale Univ. Press 1962, rpt. Univ. of OK Press 1995, 141-159 (“Qualities of Imagination: The Amatory Odes”); T.P. Wiseman, from ‘Falso nomine’ and ‘The introductory sequence,’ in Catullus and his world, 130-146.

 

9/20:  More lyric love poems

Primary Readings:
Horace Carmina 1.13 (Cum tu, Lydia, Telephi, imitation in part of Catullus 51 & Sappho 31); 4.1 (Ligurinus)

Catullus 11

 

9/25:  Love & wine deities

Primary Readings:
Sappho 1 & Eros frag. (in English)

Anacreon on Eros (in English)

Pindar (dithyramb)

frags. of Laevius on handout (Venus)

Catullus 45 (Acmen Septimius suos amores); ***

Horace 1.19 (Mater saeva Cupidinum); 1.30 (short; to Venus); 2.19 (Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus)

Seneca, Oedipus 403-428f. (to Bacchus; lucidum caeli decus, huc ades; astrophic canticum)

 

9/27:  Woods and deities

Primary Readings:
Horace 3.18 (Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator); 3.22 (Montium custos nemorumque, Virgo); 2.13 (address to tree!); 1.22 (Integer vitae scelerisque purus [Lalage!]); stanzas from 3.4 (Descende caelo et dic age tibia/ regina longum Calliope melos…)

Secondary reading:  Steele Commager, from “The World of Nature:  Time and Change,” in The Odes of Horace, 235-254.

 

10/2:  Music deities

Primary Readings:
Catullus 35 (Sapphica musa & Magna Mater)

Horace 1.24 (dirge for Varus, Melpomene, mention of Vergil, Thracian Orpheus, Mercury’s flock); 1.26 (Musis amicus tristitiam et metus, Lamia); 1.32 (Poscimur); more stanzas from 3.4 (Horace among Muses); 4.3 (Quem tu, Melpomene, semel)

 

10/4:  Girlfriends and boyfriends

Primary Readings:
Catullus 5, 7, 48, 99 (kiss-poems); 6 & 10 (on friends’ girlfriends); 109 (foedus amicitiae)

Horace 1.23 (Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloë); 2.12 (Licymnia = Terentia, cf. Schol. Sat. 1.2.64); 1.11 & 4.10 (to Leuconoë and Ligurinus); 1.33 (jokes of Venus); 3.20 (rivals)

Secondary reading:  T.P. Wiseman, “A world not ours,” in Catullus and his world, 1-14.

 

10/9:  Patrons and lyric friends

Primary Readings:
Catullus 1 and Ausonius, Eclogues, “Ausonius Drepanio filio”

Catullus 50 (Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi); 96 (response to grief-song sent by Calvus)

30 (Alfene immemor atque unanimis false sodalibus) & 38 (Malest, Cornifici, tuo Catullo)

Horace 1.1 (dedication to Maecenas); 4.11 (Maecenas’ birthday)

 

0/11:  Lyric enemies

Primary Readings:
Hipponax 28 (against painter Mimnes), 115—Strasburg papyrus, end of curse (in English)

Archilochus *** (in English)

Sappho *** (in English)

Catullus 37 (Salax taberna uosque contubernales, Lesbia’s lovers, choliambic); 40 (Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Rauide), 36 (Annales Volusi, cacata carta); 42 (Adeste hendecasyllabi); 16 and 41; 21; 47 (Porci et Socration, duae sinistrae), 49 (to Cicero), 93 (Caesar)

Secondary reading:  W. Fitzgerald, ‘The anxieties of publication,’ in Catullan Provocations:  Lyric poetry and the drama of position, Berkeley: Univ. of CA Press 1995, 44-55.
[*paranda songs from Belize, attacking/teasing*]

 

10/16:  Dramatic choral lyrics

Primary Readings:
Sophocles, Trachiniai 210ff. (kletic); Antigone (odes & kommos), in English

Aristophanes, Birds chorus (in English)

Plautus, Rudens 290-305

Seneca, Agamemnon 310-407

 

10/18:  Girls’ and boys’ dances

Primary Readings:
Alcman 1 & 3 (in English)

Catullus 34 (Dianae sumus in fide)

Horace, Carmina 1.21; 3.1 (opening and closing stanzas), 3.14

 

10/23: Horace’s Carmen saeculare

Secondary Reading:  E. Fraenkel, Horace ch. VII (“Carmen Saeculare”), 364-382; M. Putnam, Horace’s Carmen saeculare: ritual magic and the poet’s art, New Haven 2000, ***-*** (on reserve)
 

10/25:  Later choral traditions

Primary Readings:
Petronius, fr. 19

Prudentius, from Liber Cathemerinon, IX:  Hymnus omnis horae

 

10/30:  Traveling

Primary Readings:
Catullus 101 (Multas per gentes); 46 (Iam uer egelidos refert tepores)

Horace 1.3 (Sic te diva potens Cypri); 3.10 (if she were far away); 1.36 (return of Damalis)

 

11/1:  Foreign places and the empire

Primary Readings:
Horace 1.7 (Laudabunt alii); 2.7 (happy return of Pompeius)

Statius 4.5 (Severus, Libya-born, is a true Roman)

 
Please vote on Tuesday, 11/6!
 

11/8:  Catullus and Home

Primary Readings:
Catullus 9 (homecoming of Veranius); 31 (Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque/ ocelle); 44 (O funde noster)
 

11/13:  Horace and Home

Primary Readings:
Horace 2.6 (Septimi, Gadis aditure mecum, on Tibur); 1.17 (Velox amoenum saepe Lucretilem/Mutat Lycaeo Faunus); 1.38 (Persicos odi, puer, apparatus); 2.15 (history of “home”); Horace 3.13 (O fons Bandusiae); 3.23 (to Phidyle)

Secondary Reading:  G. Highet, on Horace’s Tivoli, from Poets in a Landscape, London 1957, 121-126; on the Odes, 126-137; on Horace’s Sabine farm, 137-152.

 
11/15: Catch-up day
 

11/20:  Death and poetry

Primary Readings:
Hipponax 32 (Hermes, dear Hermes…) (in English)

Horace Carmina 1.4, 1.10 (Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis), 2.14 (Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume); 2.17 (Cur me querelis exanimas tuis? to Maecenas on linked fates); 3.11 (Mercury, story of Danaids); 4.7; 4.10

A.E. Housman, “The merry guide”; Diffugere nives (English poem & translation)

Secondary Reading:  Steele Commager, “Nature’s Decorum and Death,” in The Odes of Horace, 265-291; M. Putnam, “Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis,” in Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy and Epic, Princeton 1982, 99-101 (on reserve)

 
11/27:  Horace 4.2 (Pindar ode); Pindar *** (in English)
 

11/29:  Some poems with Greek “models”

Primary Readings:
Alcaeus fr. 18 Bergk (~ Horace 1.14), fr. 34 (~ Horace 1.9), 44 (~ Horace 1.18), 59 (~ Horace 3.12)

Anacreon 51 (compare Horace 1.23, Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloe, already read)

Pindar (dithyramb; other?)

Bacchylides (?); Horace 1.15, ~ Statius Achilleis 1.20f.

Callimachus **, Philodemus **

Secondary Reading:  W.R. Johnson, “In the Birdcage of the Muses,” in The idea of lyric: lyric modes in ancient and modern poetry, Berkeley: Univ. of CA Press 1982 (on reserve)

 

12/4:  Late antique and medieval lyrics

Primary Readings:
Ausonius, Ephemeris poem (Sapphic)

Boethius, lyric poems

Gaselee’s poem #12 (anon., 10th cent., Verona)

 

12/6:  Humanist/Renaissance and modern lyrics

Primary Readings:
Jesuit imitation of O fons Bandusiae, other Jesuit lyrics

Milton, Swinburne, other adaptations of lyric meter

Rhythm & words in modern poetry—H.D., Eliot/Pound, Dylan Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins

modern metrical experiments

Secondary reading:  from Carol Maddison, Apollo and the nine: a history of the ode, Baltimore, MD:  Johns Hopkins Press 1960; W. Fitzgerald, “Between Men,” in Catullan Provocations, 212-235; T.P. Wiseman, ‘The afterlife of Lesbia,’ in Catullus and his world, 211-245.