2. In poem 32, Catullus begs a woman (ipsitilla) to meet with him secretly like lovers do. He asks her to stay indoors and get herself ready for nine rounds of sex. He describes that he is ready to go and satisfy her needs. If she wants it, all she has to do is give the order.
In poem 33, Catullus speaks of this father and son who are both thieves. He describes that they are sneaking around bathhouses. The father is more of a thief while the son is busy selling his body like a prostitute. Catullus shows disgust when he says “why don’t you both get the hell out of here and go to the devil?” He then mocks them by saying the father’s reputation is well known, as a thief and the son couldn't sell himself for a penny.
In poem 37, Catullus attacks these men in a bar who are kind of offensive in a sexual way. He asks them if they think they are the only ones with a penis? And do they think of others as nothing more then goats? He then goes on to express his love for this girl who has left his embrace and has been having sex with all these men. There are about 100 to 200 of them there. It seems she is prostituting herself to these men and that is the reason for Catullus's anger when addressing the men in this bar.
The common theme in all three poems is sex. There are some other themes such as prostitution and sneakiness. In all the poems he shows different emotions towards sex. In the first he is excited and begging for it with his love. In the second, he is disgusted by this boy selling sex. In the third, he is upset that his love is selling sex to these men. Catullus social commentaries are valuable for modern times. There is not much that has changed therefore his opinions are not outdated. There is still prostitution but its done more quietly and the views he has on sex are pretty much still around.
3. Romantic love is two people who are deeply in love and very passionate about each other. There is a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. Loving someone can mean anything. You love your family, your friends. It simply means you really care about that person. When you are in love with someone it means you do more then just care about them. You think about them all the time, your excited to see them, you wish to spend every moment of everyday together. Your world revolves around this person and there is nowhere you would rather be then with that person. This love turns romantic because you do anything to make your love happy and the feelings are so strong that everything from small to big will be romantic.
2 comments:
I have to say that your interpretation of how he feels about these two women , Quintia and Lesbia, is very different from how I felt that he perceived them. I did not think about the fact that Lesbia is the most beautiful because he's in love and he believes it to be so. I did not think that this poem can be interpreted into two extremes; one in which Catullus finds this woman physically attractive and another in which she is beautiful because he's in love. When you really think about it Lesbia can be the most physically attractive woman to him and be the woman that he is in love with.
Here is my comment
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