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Catullus Figurative Language

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“Most challenging in his attempt to do so is his relationship with Lesbia, whom Catullus portrays as constantly confounding his sense of masculinity and traditional gender roles, perhaps as a method of exploring the author’s own tensions regarding ancient conceptions of gender and sexuality and his relationship with Greek poetic traditions” (Boylan, Rebecca F., "Eros the Man, Eros the Woman: Conflicting Identities and Gender Construction in the Catullan Corpus" (2014). Classics Honors Projects.Paper 18.) In his poems, Catullus transcends gender spheres through his own personal persona and the masculine persona he sets as a man in love. Throughout the poems featuring his relationship with Lesbia he is seen as more emotional and ardent, traits normally associated with women. I will examine how these traits being shown through his passionate tone and figurative language display a reversal of traditional gender roles towards love. …show more content…

By being more descriptive in these parts of his poems he shows how much he loves Lesbia focuses in closer on his love for Lesbia. In Catullus V the symbolism of night as death and light as life is used to show how Catullus wants to spend eternity with Lesbia and in turn displays their love. The repetition of d, c, and m sounds mimic kissing as seen in lines 7 to 9 which put in numerical form as 3,300 kisses show how much passion Catullus feels towards his lover. The juxtaposition of “versano catullo” (Catullus VII, line 10) asserts his position as a bold lover and shows how crazy in love he is over Lesbia. Hence, why in Catullus VIII when they break up he asks her a list of rhetorical questions. “To whom will you seem pretty? Whom now will you love? Whose will you be said to be?” (Catullus VIII, line 16-17) further showing his feminine nature by asking her who is better than him because he’s the best she will ever

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