Breaking the frame: from Catullus 64 to ancient metalepsis

The proposed research will lead to a commentary on Catullus 64, with newly edited text, to be published in the CUP series Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries (the 'orange' series). Research on a recurring aspect of Catullus 64, metalepsis or the breaking of the narrative frame, will be used to launch a collaborative exploration of metalepsis in Greek and Roman literature.

Catullus 64 is a miniature epic (just over 400 lines) from the mid-first century BC. After a misleading opening implying that it will be about the Argonauts, it narrates the meeting and marriage of Peleus and Thetis, parents of Achilles. More than half of it, however, is an extended description ('ecphrasis') of the couple's marriage bed, on the coverlet of which is a picture of the abandoned Ariadne. This is a very atypical ecphrasis: the depicted Ariadne utters a lengthy speech. When the narration returns to the wedding, the Fates sing a song prophesying Achilles' heroic but bloody exploits, and the poem suddenly ends with a conclusion in which the narrator laments the moral decline of civilisation since the heroic age.

Like Catullus' other poetry, 64 is both central to and problematic for Classical scholarship. Catullus wrote under the late Roman Republic in political circumstances very different from those of the Augustan and imperial periods from which so much widely studied Latin poetry comes. His small corpus covers a large and unpredictable range of genres, and 64, his longest poem, has always created its own problems for critics. Modern discussions, in articles and occasional monographs, have pursued various lines of inquiry, with a particularly clear dichotomy between accounts that see 64 as 'about' something external to itself - whether Catullus' own emotional life or his attitude to his times - and those that see it as 'about' aspects of its own poetic nature - such as ecphrasis, intertextuality, or narrative confusion. Meanwhile, readers of the poem still rely on inadequate commentaries, usually constrained in scope by their appearance within commentaries on the whole Catullan corpus.

The proposed commentary will transform our understanding of Catullus 64 by offering important new literary interpretations of the poem that are both informed by up-to-date, theoretically aware approaches to Roman poetry and based on a thoroughgoing reassessment of the problems of the text from the scale of the individual word upwards. Simultaneously, it will be an essential, reliable tool for researchers and students in the wider fields of Greek and Roman literature and cultural history. It will also demonstrate that commentary remains a form of essential importance in Classics, but one that should be constantly reinvigorated through self-critical reflection: I shall make a practical contribution to this by collaborating with another early career commentator to hold a workshop for commentary writers, with an emphasis on commentators at the beginning of their careers who will be taking the form forward in the future.

One aspect of Catullus 64's literary depth and complexity is its recurring use of metalepsis. Metalepsis is the breaking of the frame between narrative levels, for instance an author and his text, or Ariadne on the coverlet and the wedding-guests who are gazing at her. It is a concept which has only recently begun to be discussed in Classics, but could lead to fresh and interesting interpretations of key phenomena in ancient literature. To stimulate research in this area I shall convene an international conference on metalepsis in a wide range of Greek and Roman texts, again collaborating with an early career colleague, and I shall speak myself on metalepsis across Catullus' poetry.

While the main research outputs are aimed at the academic community, it will be possible to communicate some of the fruits of the research in a programme of impact activities: talks in schools and art galleries and articles in educational magazines.

In line with the aims of the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series and the current needs of scholarship on Catullus 64 (see Case for Support), the commentary which is the principal output of this research is primarily written for professional scholars and graduate students. The detailed notes assume knowledge of Latin and often Greek, and the whole work is aimed at those with some background in ancient literature and in the methods of advanced literary study. However, this also means that the commentary in its entirety will be equally accessible and richly rewarding to advanced undergraduate students who do have this background, as many do. Such undergraduates will gain great academic benefit from access to cutting-edge research on this poem. As set out in 'Pathways to Impact', I shall work to ensure that the commentary is brought to undergraduates' attention.

Outside universities there are two main audiences with the potential to benefit from my research: school students and the general public. Although Catullus appears quite often on the A-level or GCSE syllabuses for Latin or Classical Civilisation, the focus is usually on his shorter, simpler poems, and even if 64 is set it is usually (understandably) only in short sections, so that students typically encounter only Ariadne without appreciating how she is framed within an entirely different story. Similarly, although there are good translations of Catullus' poetry in print (the best known in the UK is Lee's for Oxford World's Classics), 64 has not traditionally had a high profile among those members of the general public who might be interested in ancient literature. This is true in comparison to Catullus' short poems of love and hate and also (somewhat paradoxically) to other, much longer pieces of mythological literature such as Ovid's Metamorphoses. Yet I believe that my work on the interpretation of Catullus 64 can be made accessible to both these audiences. No specialist knowledge is required for the reader to be moved by the visual beauty and emotional intensity of Catullus 64 and intrigued by the games it plays with narration and description, and with our moral judgements. My research and impact activities will enable both school students and the general public to engage with the poem on this level: they should be encouraged to explore the text's complexity, not protected from it.

As explained in 'Pathways to Impact', I shall reach these audiences by using some of the funded time in the second year of the Fellowship to give a programme of talks, and to write two articles for educational magazines, presenting aspects of my research in an appropriate and accessible form. School students, hearing or reading about the strange structure and paradoxes of Catullus 64 or the perilous transmission of Classical texts from antiquity to today, will gain an enriched understanding of ancient literature which will add to their general knowledge and cultural literacy whether or not they are inspired to go on to study Classics at university. In my talks to the general public, I shall particularly focus on the links between Catullus 64 and Western painting since the Renaissance, and shall aim to speak at art galleries and museums. I hope thereby to reach audiences who are interested in how visual art can 'tell a story', and to show them how ancient literature could explore this question in a perhaps surprisingly sophisticated way. These public audiences will therefore gain cultural benefit from my talks, in the form of an increased knowledge and understanding not just of this particular piece of Roman literature but of the different ways in which any narrative can be presented in words or in a picture. The galleries and museums at which I plan to speak will also benefit, since by bringing in expertise from a discipline outside art history I shall be enriching their own programmes of public engagement.