AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

A comparison of the Dido story of the Aeneid IV with the Ariadne episode in Catullus LXIV

by Eleanor Madge Gordon




Institution: University of Missouri – Columbia
Department:
Year: 1907
Record ID: 1501055
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10355/15318


Abstract

When considering carefully the Epyllion of Catullus and Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid, can we say that Virgil was influenced by Catullus? It seems to me we are justified in saying this. Certainly it would not be fair to say that Virgile literally copied Catullus in any respect. Can we not, however, be justified in thinking that Virgil was familiar with Catullus's poem, that he had read and re-read it and that he approved of it to such an extent that he borrowed from it certain words and certain thoughts? How otherwise can we account for the similarities of expression and thought? We might possibly account for a few similarities by accident in treatment but not for the great majority of them. It is not at all likely that a poet would group his words and phrases in a manner so similar to the arrangement of another, without having first read that other. Therefore in view of the facts that will be given here, it seems to me, we are warranted in saying that Virgil, in a more of less marked degree shows his indebtedness to the work of Catullus.