Thursday, October 22, 2009

72

Catullus loves literary games. He always does little things that at first glance you may not notice. In 51 he puts 'ille' and 'te' opposite from eachother and in the poem he specifically says that that guy was sitting opposite her(Lesbia). In this poem he plays with the words of to know. He uses 'nosse', the word that has intimate connotation but uses 'cognovi', the word with a meaning of him finding out or learning about her, obviously that shows he has figured something out. Using the different wordes of to know make me notice that Lesbia now knows(intimately) somebody else: it sheds light on the situation. It is now evident this poem is about cheating on your significant other. What I really found to be fascinating, however, was his conclusion of the matter. He does not seem angry that this has happened, I got more a feel of hurt. He is forced to feel more love for her(unwillingly because she definitely hurt him) since now he knows their bond is so strong she can't make him stop loving her. He was made jealous so it makes sense that since he is powerless to end the love, he can no longer hold her at the high respect she was held at before. This is definitely true because I know that if I was in this situation and I truly loved the person I most likely wouldn't just stop loving them but I wouldn't be able to respect them as much. What I just said also influences that this is truly classsic since the things he's referring to can connect to me.

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