Catullus' fantastical memories - poem 68 and writing trauma

Title: Catullus' fantastical memories - poem 68 and writing trauma
Creator: Johnson, Marguerite
Relation: Antichthon Vol. 55, p. 136-154
Publisher Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ann.2021.8
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2021
Description: In the many evocations of memory in the Catullan corpus, fantasy plays a significant, albeit discrete role. Fantasy embellishes memories in Catullus’ poems, not necessarily making them bearable but enabling them to be understood, in part. I argue that in poem 68 there are two different approaches to fantastical memories: the intense and vivid memories of his brother's death, and the memories of Lesbia that move both towards, and away from, overt fantasy. In this sense, and in the context of poem 68, fantasy communicates the memory of trauma in a way that includes vivid, hyperbolic, symbolic and metaphoric modes of expression. In the case of the fantasy embedded in the memory of Lesbia, it also entails wish fulfilment.
Subject: Catullus 68; memory; brother; Lesbia; fantasy; trauma
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1446167
Identifier: uon:42786
Identifier: ISSN:0066-4774
Language: eng
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