SOURCE: "Catullus and the Reader: The Erotics of Poetry," in Arethusa, Vol. 25, No. 3, Fall, 1992, pp. 419-43.

In the following essay, Fitzgerald develops "an erotics of Catullus's poetry, and especially the polymetrics, because of the fact that these poems are performances that take place in the context of a still self-conscious and developing conception of sophisticated, urban social behavior."

When Lucretius says that the purpose of his poetry is to sweeten the bitter draught of a difficult but beneficial philosophy we tend to take him at his word, and have often set ourselves and others the task of showing how Lucretius goes about his purpose. Catullus' statement that his verses are successful (have sal and lepor) only if they can sexually arouse hairy men has not generated much in the way of research. Of the various possible reasons for this, one that we can eliminate is that the poem...