The Dynamics of Catullan Obscenity: cc. 37, 58 and 11

So Byron, enough of a seasoned campaigner himself to recognize smut when he came across it. Any moral objection to literature proffered by an arch-libertine should be taken, of course, with a grain of salt. Yet in that very parody of prudish cant we may hear the ghostly echo of sentiments voiced by some genuine prig— Annabella, Lady Byron, for example. In any case, Byron's observation about the exceptional amount of obscenity in the Catullan corpus still holds good and has recently been seconded by other, more sober, critics. B. Arkins calculates that two out of three poems of Catullus deal with some form of sexual behavior, and A. Richlin concurs: "Out of all the polymetrics and epigrams, sixty-two—well over half—include invective or sexual material, some of the coarsest in Latin verse."1 No one who has read this poet through once will challenge D. Lateiner's contention that obscenity "has made a significant contribution to the work of Catullus," or dispute W.R. Johnson's belief in its being "somehow central to Catullus's art."2 For most readers of Catullan texts, the mere presence of such obscene matter no longer poses a moral problem. Yet its literary purpose is still hotly debated. Why does this "foul-mouthed young man," as Johnson calls him, persist in battering our ears with toilet-stall expressions? Different lines of critical response to that question can be traced. Johnson himself argues for an iconoclastic intent: Catullus' shocking language allegedly encapsulates a rejection of old-fashioned Roman cultural values that regarded art as a vehicle of patriotic inspiration or dismissed it as a frivolous