Comparing The Writing Tablets: To The Hendecasyllables '

Enduring a breakup with his girlfriend, Roman poet Catullus turns to writing ill-mannered poetry about her. ‘42. The Writing Tablets: to the Hendecasyllables’ is Catullus’ poem about his relationship with Lesbia, a pseudonym for his ended love affair, in where he calls her a ‘base adulteress’ and demands back his letters in which he wrote to her. This poem is what I choose to do a creative response to, due to Catullus’ strong themes of justice, anger and his use of visual imagery.

Catullus had written about Lesbia in many of his other poems (appearing in 25 of his 116 surviving poems), however many had a far different tone, of passionate and tender poems to her. Nonetheless, the atmosphere of 42 opposed to his more passionate works, is mocking, overwhelming and vengeful.

The two major themes of this poem are revenge/justice and anger.

He displays this vengefulness through calling Lesbia cruel names and describing her in crass matter, as clearly stated when he describes Lesbia;

‘Which one, you may ask? The one you can see
Strutting disgracefully, laughing ridiculously,
Maddening, with the jaws of a Gaulish bitch.’

He uses strong imagery here accompanied with asyndeton, to project an overwhelming negative description of Lesbia. This displays his unbridled anger towards her, as he describes an ex-lover so harshly.

Catullus also refers to anger later in piece when he repeats the same lines twice about her, and then later again with more aggravation;

‘Stinking adulteress, give back my letters,
give back, stinking adulteress, my letters!’
...
‘Call her again in a louder voice,
Stinking adulteress, give back my letters,
give back, stinking adulteress, my letters!’

The repetition of these lines displays Catullus’ anger towards Lesbia, having a need for people to know. This also reinforces Lesbia’s projected character in this piece as adulterous and vile.

Accompanied with rage, here is a display the vengefulness of the poem through personification throughout the poem.

42 is written to ‘the Hendecasyllables,’ a line of 11 syllables, which he personifies throughout the piece, talking to them about Lesbia. Using the term hendecasyllables shows both Catullus’ education as well as his ability to use formality for a untraditionally formal subject and word choices.

He talks to the hendecasyllables similarly as if they were an audience. Catullus directly explains the situation to them, offers rhetorical questions and describes what they are going to do to Lesbia.

‘We’ll follow her: ask for them back.’

This is not meant to be taken literally, as more to stimulate a imaginary confrontation between him and Lesbia. Catullus may have implied for the general Roman people to antagonize Lesbia, however with Lesbia being a pseudonym, it would have been hating a mystery woman (unless Lesbia was commonly known from her pseudonym.)

This imaginary confrontation is used to lash out on Lesbia and displays what Catullus wants from her apart from the physical need of his letters.

‘You won’t? O to the mire, the brothel,

or if anything can be more ruinous, than

that!’

Catullus implies that he does not except to get the letters back, either through experience or lack of trust, he uses this displays his need to get revenge. Whether he does or does not receive the letters is uncertain, however Catullus clearly wants Lesbia to suffer from this confrontation.

The major themes of Catullus’ 42, were how both anger and justice entirewned and that is my major focus in my piece. How I choose to represent Catullus’ justice and anger was through a digital art piece being a gif that would show multiple different frames. The decision to illustrate this poem was the strong imagery that Catullus uses for Lesbia and the confrontation between him and Lesbia.

The description that Catullus uses to describe Lesbia provide strong imagery of how she looks and acts. This is also later reinforced with the confrontation between him and Lesbia, as her actions as well as Catullus’ are distinct.

To represent this my piece featured two basic frames, and 3 added frames for affect. I choose to have multiple frames because I choose to have a normal frame, and then an abnormal frame which would be repeated in different ways to portray a sudden and unusual change.

The setting in my piece is a courtroom, focusing on the jury box and chairs. The surrounding area around is minimal and is meant to not take anything away from the jury box and person. There’s also a open piece of paper on the floor, meant to symbolise an ‘open letter.’
justice but empty
open letter, to Lesbia

The normal frame of this art piece is the Dike frame, where the figure standing is a statue of a Greek Goddess. She holds a sword in one hand and a scale in the other, as well as a halo behind her head.