Conclusion

Scaliger’s commentary was the last major Catullan event of the sixteenth century. Poets continued to write Catullan poetry in both Latin and the vernacular, and there were some textual discussions or partial commentaries, the most important being the works of the Dutch scholars Janus Dousa pater and filius published in 1581 and 1592 (Gaisser 1992: 271-5; Heesakkers 1976). The most interesting treatment, however, was a collection of parodies of poem 4 printed in 1579. This work, entitled Phaselus Catulli, was edited under the pseudonym Sixtus Octavianus by the Belgian humanists Victor Giselinus and Janus Lernutius and dedicated to their friend Janus Dousa the Elder (van Crombruggen 1959: 3-11; Gaisser 1993: 255-71). It contained both Catalepton 10 and a number of sixteenth-century parodies (convivial, invective, religious, obscene, and ‘‘literary’’), together with a discussion of parody by Julius Caesar Scaliger.

But the times were not favorable to Catullan studies. Catullus’ obscenity was part of the problem (it had worried both the papal secretary Statius and the Protestant Scaliger), but all of his work was uncongenial to the general spirit of the age, which was increasingly concerned with serious moral, philosophical, and theological questions. Catullus’ highest values, by contrast, are personal and aesthetic: the bonds of trust and obligation between individuals, and a poetic credo founded on learning, craftsmanship, and - above all - charm and wit. There is no room in his poetic landscape for large moral or national themes, no reference to ideals or claims beyond those of the individual. Such a poet cannot be recruited to the cause of moral utility and can be taken seriously only by those who put a premium on poetry and poetics and the bonds of personal affection. It is no accident that those who enjoyed and profited from him most in the second half of the sixteenth century were Muret and the French poets of the Brigade, and the Dutch and Belgian parodists who studied his techniques and saw Catullus and his friends as the model for their own sodality.