French Literature Reviews - 2026

Thierry Barbaud, Catullus: A Poetics of the Ineffable
Poetry and Poetics

Thierry Barbaud
Catullus: A Poetics of the Ineffable.

PEETERS Publishers
Series "Bibliothèque d’Études Classiques" no. 47
Leuven (Belgium) 2006
ISBN: 90-429-1693-1 / EAN 13 : 9789042916937
XII + 280 pages
45.00 €

Overview (based on the publisher's website) :

We have chosen to approach Catullus through what he leaves behind: disorder and a secret. This disorder serves as a wellspring for the imagination: indeed, the reader's memory strives to reconstruct its themes, notably through the characters. The "poetic dissemination" paradoxically created by metric grouping generates a troubling temporal dynamic, characterized by Catullus's dual movement of connection and separation. Fragmented poetic space (whether intentional or not) calls for unified time; hiatuses summon likenesses. In the Catullan world, every star signals and seeks its constellation.
Thus, it immediately appeared to us that the work of reworking, returning to, and even obsessing over writing went hand in hand with a poetics of the unexpressed. Whether dealing with lyrical or allegorical passions, the author declines his affective culture while seeking ideal structures and multiple styles subordinated to generic demands. Ellipsis and digression aptly figure the artist's dissatisfaction with explicit language and rectilinear traces; he cultivates the implicit and the roundabout, subverting signs for the sake of the surprises they enclose. Even when repeating himself to restate, he states otherwise. It is the shimmer of iridescent language or its abrupt contrasts that interest him above all.
Hence the importance of different voices, of the figures escorting each poem so that diffuse and violent impressions transform into stylistic expressions. Catullan mimesis closely hugs emotions, particularly through dialogue, but also distances them through the weaving of imagery, of which "ecphrasis" and allegory are the primary sites.
Thus, Catullus's evolving rhetoric follows the process of the most personal stylistic research: our second part attempts to visit the poet's workshop, considering the rhetorical and stylistic aspects of his work. Roman speech and Italic accents intersect with an enhancing Greek preciosity. Catullus employs a playful, festive orality, endowing it with novel inventive capacities; his speech is open both to the uproar of the forum and the verve of insult, capturing the life of everyday words and stylizing effects: he transcribes the minor and major dramas of emotion within chosen registers, depending on a situation and a fictional enunciative context. The poet explores modes of expression to emphasize their emotional character, never choosing them without imbuing them with the force of sensible persuasion.
Catullus is nevertheless aware of the deceptive yet truthful charms of speech: the speaker often reveals himself through this paradox, with his shortcomings and excesses, bringing together hyperbole and litotes. Yet, might not the arbiter of passionate elegances be the carmen, that fluid song of Aeolian lyricism that gradually becomes ritualized within the distich? Catullus turns the hexameter toward the pentameter, framing a thought (a precursor to concettism?) and imparting a movement of seduction: the poet undoubtedly seeks to render his speech desirable, turning it into a sensible symbol. To achieve this, he activates lexical and rhythmic resources, aiming for a consummate craftsmanship of the poem. Poem 64, frequently analyzed, illustrates an anxious art striving toward stability.
Yet the poetic quest for expressions of the self is always conducted in a dual dialogue: upstream, with Greek poets—Sappho and Callimachus in particular—he gathers violence and grace, turning his eroticism into passion. Downstream, with the elegiac poets—Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid—he maps out the path where the paradoxes of desire, the illusions of the heart, and the beauty of images venture forth. He prefigures, even in Seneca and Martial, this intermediate movement of absorbing "baroque" Hellenism and its classical reaction: Catullus evolves toward a poetics of depth, caught between the shadow and light of figures.

Latin lyric poetry developed within a rich Mediterranean tradition of stylistic innovation, blending indigenous Italic registers with heavily adapted Hellenistic models. Roman poets frequently navigated the demands of conventional generic structures while attempting to articulate deeply personal affective experiences. This ongoing negotiation between inherited forms and individual expression remains a central concern in the study of classical verse. Readers interested in classical literature and Latin philology may find this critical analysis relevant to their understanding of late republican poetic technique.

This study examines how Catullus employs fragmentation, metrical organization, and rhetorical strategies such as ecphrasis and allegory within his verse. The text addresses the poet's engagement with Greek precursors like Sappho and Callimachus, as well as his connection to subsequent elegiac writers. Furthermore, the overview notes an exploration of everyday orality, stylistic contrasts, and the complex interplay between explicit language and the unexpressed in the poet's workshop.