Geni(t)al poet. The diffuse limit between eroticism and pornography in Catullus’ carmen 50

Abstract

The present work is inscribed in an interpretative line according to which much of the ancient erotic literature could be read in ‘porno-graphic’ key. In particular, it is centered on the carmen 50 of the neoteric poet C. V. Catullus. In this composition it seems to allude to the onanist practice of the poetic-self, an allusion that would cease to be such to constitute an explicit reference to it. Analyzing those terms or discursive strategies that require and encourage the inferential work of the reader, we hope to be able to corroborate the proposed reading.