Catullus 64 and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: allusion and exemplarity 1

Abstract

The sixty-fourth poem of Catullus, a work which has in times past been dismissed as contrived, is now appreciated precisely because it is carefully contrived. The majority of modern scholarship seems willing, implicitly or explicitly, to look upon the poem's intricacies and apparent contradictions as constituting part of its attraction, acknowledging that artifice does not necessarily preclude art. The complexities of poem 64 are contingent to a large degree upon its interaction with earlier poetic models. Structural devices of narrative are borrowed from a variety of sources; themes and scenes are delineated so as to reveal their full meaning through reader awareness of other works; literary allusions pervade the text. Perhaps the most salient intertextual feature of Catullus' epyllion is its interaction with previous literary treatments of the myth of Jason and Medea. In this regard, it has long been recognised that a poem of central importance for the reading of Catullus 64 is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, and this present exploration of allusion in poem 64 will concentrate on the intertextual connections between 64 and its Hellenistic epic predecessor.