Wikipedia:Peer review/Catullus 16/archive1

Catullus 16
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because GA review indicated there are some major points to address in the article. A Peer Review is a natural next step.

Thanks, AgadaUrbanit (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't responded to a request for a peer review before. Is this the appropriate place to make a comment? Or does that go on the talk page or someplace else? Cynwolfe (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * All peer review comments should be made here. Take a look at some other PR pages, to get the idea. Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Reviewer 1. The article currently focuses on sexual vocabulary (though Amy Richlin's article on the verb irrumare is underutilized) and doesn't explore some of the topics in the introduction. It seems to be concerned almost entirely with how the imagery has offended modern sensibilities, and doesn't really offer a basis for understanding Carmen 16 in the context of Catullus's poetry as a whole, or his significance to Latin poetry in general. Some missing aspects: Structurally, the article relies too much on stitching quotes together, which seems to be a substitute for thinking through and summarizing the material. The article could benefit from a broader range of sources to provide some of the larger literary context that's missing.
 * a metrical analysis and a discussion of how this poem relates to other hendecasyllabics in the Catullan corpus.
 * how the poem relates to the tradition of invective poetry in Greek and Latin literature.
 * sounder explication of how the poem fits in the Furius and Aurelius cycle of poems.
 * how the poets mentioned in the intro responded to the poem, particularly its views on the relation of the poet's life to his work—a theme that needs to be dealt with in greater depth.
 * the poem as an aesthetic statement (there's a misunderstood reference to Wiseman that points to this line of analysis).

Although the poem is significant in understanding sexuality in ancient Rome, it's also a work of literature. In general, there's just too great an emphasis on the dirty language for its own sake, and not enough awareness of the poem in its Greco-Roman literary context or the body of Catullus's poetry. To be honest, I think it would be hard to make this a GA without a knowledge of Catullus's other poems and of major Catullan scholarship as background. Cynwolfe (talk) 03:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)