The Poetry Of Catullus

A less theoretical definition of poetry is, “putting the best words in the best possible order.” A poet may incorporate the theory as follows. The poet may astutely choose words possibly with a double meaning in order to indirectly convey a message, evoke emotions, or to slander. Then, the poet may unconventionally place such words and phrases perhaps out of expected order for the sake of creating a “word picture,” emphasizing the speaker’s feelings, or offering tangibility to the poem. By implementing this idea onto poetic works, the poet will have auspiciously written a superb poem. This theory may be applied to a few of Catullus’s poems specifically “Carmen 5”, “Carmen 8”, and “Carmen 85.” Catullus’s meticulous choice of words and arrangement highlight the central focus of the poem, obliquely criticize traditional Roman law, manipulate the audience’s attitude, transmit the speaker’s emotions, paint “word pictures,” and offer symbolic meaning consequently producing a successful poem.

Contrast is one of the artistic techniques of composition poem at all levels – structural, semantic, compositional, ideological and aesthetic. The girl performs a ceremony in honor of St. Agnes, which, according to legend, should help her to dream her betrothed. Like Shakespeare's Romeo, a boy secretly sneaks into the castle of his beloved, both of them are united, and together they secretly leave the castle at stormy night. The tender is replaced with a tempest, quietness with loudness and the world of two people is changed by the world of lovers against the world. Like Shakespeare, in the history of Porphyro and Madeline the fantasy is mixed with reality, it is adorned with a passion for life. On the one side, there is a beauty of women, lovemaking, moonlight, refracted through the bright colors of stained glass, aroma of overseas fruit and treats. Meanwhile, the reality is symbolized in the poem with a life and horrors of feasting

11. A poet can work its magic on the reader by “choice of images, music of the language, idea content, and cleverness of wordplay” (Foster 17).

Style is the special way an author creates his or her work. Gabriela Mistral exploits an informal style in her poem “Ballad”. The poem discusses the poets feelings and is written in first person point of view validating its informality; “My heart’s blood.”-Line17 using ‘my’ and describing her heart confirm this. Diction contributes to style in an extensive way. Repetition is a form of diction that is heavily spread out through the poem. “Saw him pass by.”-Lines 2/6, “He goes loving.../...in bloom”-Lines1-2/11-12, and “He will go.../through eternity.”-Lines 19-20/23-24. The repetition emphasizes the authors style an diction. In this poem diction is displayed through negative connotation. Choosing to describe her emotional state as “,wretched,”-Line 5, instead of sad or unhappy, and by adding a

George Szirtes article “Formal Wear: Notes on Rhyme, Meter, Stanza, and Pattern” from the Poetry Foundation opens with opinions which focus on limitations of poetic form. As a counter to these common arguments, Szirtes claims, “Verse is not decoration: it is structural. It is a forming principle and words at depth” ("Formal Wear: Notes” 2). He then develops an argument explaining, “the constraints of form are spurs of the imagination: that they are in fact the chief producers of imagination” ("Formal Wear: Notes” 2). Taking these ideas into consideration Szirtes incorporates the idea of language explaining how language connects to memory and imagination which come together to form poetic images. Additionally, when poets use form it develops

The focal point of this report will be on the content of poem 64 and how it, reflects Catullus himself and his relationship with Lesbia. Further, I will examine the mirroring of characters and emotions and ambiguity of the poem as it stands in relation to his other works.

The text proceeds from analyzing each poem individually, and later draws parallels between the two. It tries to answer the questions whether the poems are a call to social irresponsibility, and if the object of the poem, the common man should be scorned or pitied. That the common man who is busy conforming to the norms of the state and the society has lost connection with his natural surroundings evokes sympathy for him. Materialism has subsumed his capacity to think to an extent that he cannot even decide whether he is free to do as he wishes – can he say no to enlisting for war? Or can he hold an opinion that did not coincide with the larger public?

Thus rhyme is not just ornamental in “Echo,” but integral. The skill of Rossetti here is the same as in her half-serious, half-mocking poem “Eve,” even though the two poems are totally different. In “Eve,” she uses very plain rhyming words together with comically intended double rhymes. In “Echo,” her subject might be called fanciful and maybe even morbid, but the easiness of the rhyming words, like the diction of the poem generally, keeps the focus on regret and yearning rather than self-indulgence. As in all rhyming poems, Rossetti’s rhymes emphasize the conclusions of her lines. The rhymes go beyond this effect, however, because of the internal repetition — echoes — of the rhyming words, “Echo” is a poem in which rhyme is inseparable from

Creon, in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, declares to Oedipus that his "power ends; none of [his] power follows [him] through life." (Fagles, 652:1677-8) This edict communicates the transience of mortal abilities, and the hubris of those mortals. In the 2008 film Hamlet 2, Dana Marschz perceives himself as an excellent writer producing the work that will "save Drama" (Hamlet 2, 00:27:58-28:00), which the community loathes for its mediocrity rather than celebrates for its merits. Comparison of the two works demonstrates an erosion of the tragic genre in modern works. Through Aristotle's three elements of plot in the Poetics; anagnorisis, hamartia, and the scene of suffering; the similarities and differences of the works becomes clear.

He chooses particularly emotive lexis to convey this “impensius uror,” which shows the violence of Catullus’s passion and “vilior et levior,” which by lexical choice and the use of comparatives emphasizes how much Lesbia has fallen in Catullus’s eyes. The final phrase of this poem “quod amantem iniuria talis cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus,” is clear and logical, given Catullus’s

Oedipus suffers catharsis because of too much pain, he stabs himself in the eyes. The reason Oedipus is led to suffer from catharsis, is because of Jocasta committing suicide. Oedipus believed he should “see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused” (Fagles.1405-6.237)! After Oedipus declares this he stabs himself with the brooches off of Jocasta’s clothing. Oedipus lifts “them high looking straight up into the points he digs them down the sockets of his eyes” (Fagles.1403-5.237). Oedipus induced self-harm upon himself due to emotional discharge or catharsis. The pain of Jocasta’s death was too much for him. He believed he caused all the pain and he did, so he felt that he should see no more.

As to structure, the form of the 16th century’s poems is different from early 17th century’s poems. Elizabethan’s poems were mainly sonnets which present a situation (in the octave or in the first three quatrains) to find a solution (in the sestet or in the couplet) whereas cavalier poets used only short lyrics composed of stanzas which are simple in verse and style to express their feelings and thoughts.

Coleridge stated that poetry “gives us most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood”. He preferred to consider The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere a work of “pure imagination” rather than a textual construction representing a particular cultural ideology. However, his writing of the text as a Romantic poet, espousing all ideologies that the Romantic Movement represented, conditioned his work to be one of passion, mystery and imagination. Due to this, his “purely imaginative” work fosters the dominant discourse of a Romantic outlook on the universe; the protagonists of the text

In his pioneering work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon writes that “the poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age.” Indeed, Ausonius’s work may seem uncomplicated on the surface: he borrows heavily from previous literature and uses straightforward syntax. However, his work contains depth beyond its ostensible simplicity: it blends genres and uses consistent themes as narrative foci to guide the reader. In two of his most prominent poems, liquid (as water and drink) is the key interpretive control: In the Bissula, alcohol provides wisdom that counters the confining seriousness of sobriety, while in the Moselle the river provides calm comfort that contrasts with the hectic unnatural world. Throughout both poems, Ausonius consistently uses liquid to contrast the serenity and clarity provided by water and drink with the chaos of the dry world.

Socratic moral philosophy is important in poetry because it engages poets in rational thinking when making poems. Poetry is mostly communicated through written texts; it can be used to expand one’s knowledge of himself or herself and the world. However, philosophers disparage poetry by its composition and senses such as imitation, representation, fiction, and expression. On this note, Socrates used philosophical explorations to criticize the role of poetry in the world. Many poets engage in imitation and imagination in their poetic works, which limits the chances of poetry enhancing knowledge in the society. The branch points between poets and Socrates are imitation versus and imagination versus reason.