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Guest Post

A Turkish Angora Cat in Paris: An insight into Catullus’ ‘Sparrow Poem’ (c. 2) arising from a Modern Greek Song

2019.03.18 | By Lucia Athanassaki This response has been inspired by Gregory Nagy’s discussion of Catullus’ famous ‘Sparrow Poem’ (c. 2) in Classical Inquiries 2018.12.13. According to Nagy, Catullus’ model was Sappho’s ‘Sparrow Song’, lost to us but not to Catullus, in which the Lesbian poet expressed her affection for her little sparrow. Taking my lead from a Modern Greek pet song, I shall explore a slightly different path, the possibility… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Analyzing a song to a sparrow: ‘I’m for you the girl, you’re for me the joy’

2019.03.15 | By Gregory Nagy §0. I analyze here a song that is visualized inside a very short video-audio fragment taken from a Greek film made in 1960. (I thank my friends Lucia Athanassaki and Ewen Bowie for introducing me to this film.) I say “fragment” here because the micro-story that is being told by the song, within the compressed space of only a little over two minutes, 2:16, is… Read more