Catullus Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World Series

Catullus is one of the liveliest and most appealing Roman poets. His emotion, charm, and apparent spontaneity resonate with readers as strongly today as in antiquity. This sophisticated literary and historical introduction brings Catullus to life for the modern reader and presents his poetry in all its variety of emotions, subjects, and styles.

• Places Catullus in a social, historical, and literary context
• Examines Catallus's style and subjects, and provides a literary introduction to his major themes of love, social life, and politics
• Discusses the reception of the poems by translators and interpreters

List of Figures viii

Preface ix

1 Introduction: The Young Poet in Rome 1

2 Poetry Books 22

3 The Catullan Persona 45

4 What Makes It Poetry 72

5 Poetic Architecture 100

6 Songs for Mixed Voices: Allusions, Intertexts, and Translations 133

7 Receiving Catullus 1: From Antiquity through the Sixteenth Century 166

8 Receiving Catullus 2: England and America 194

Appendix 1 Catullus' Meters 222

Appendix 2 Glossary of Metrical and Rhetorical Terms 223

Bibliography 225

General Index 235

Index of Catullus' Poems 242

Julia Haig Gaisser is Eugenia Chase Guild Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College, and a past president of the American Philological Association. She is the author of Catullus and His Renaissance Readers (1993), Pierio Valeriano on the Ill Fortune of Learned Men: A Renaissance Humanist and His World (1999), and The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass: A Study in Transmission and Reception (2008), and the editor of Catullus in English (2001), and Catullus (2007).