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99 ratings, 4.11 average rating, 12 reviews
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published
October 22nd 1998
by Oxford University Press, USA
binding
Paperback, 224 pages
isbn
0192835874
(isbn13: 9780192835871)
description
Of all Greek and Latin poets Catullus is perhaps the most accessible to the modern reader. Dealing candidly with the basic human emotions of love and...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 120)
no one has differentiated translators yet, this one picked at random. copley was my favorite before garrick turned me onto carl sesar's, first one to do justice to the extraordinary level of obscenity of the original
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Read in January, 1978
By far the best translations of Catullus I've seen, this one was taught at Naropa by Gregory Corso (who would know). Gragory copied out some different versions of his favorite Catullus poems by about 6 or 7 different translators, and asked us to compare. The most respected translator (at the time) was Horace Gregory, who blanched at the obscenity in these poems. Gregory just removed the dirty parts and replaced them with "...", while others tried to make the dirty parts sound less dirt...more
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And we think we invented sophistication . . . this stuff is so po-mo.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in November, 2008
recommended to David by:
I don't know his namerecommends it for: anyone who enjoys the classics or dirty poems
A very versatile and skilled poet. He wrote touching love poems, incredibly witty insults, mournful poems to his dead brother, sweeping mythic stories told in verse, and the funniest filthiest dirty poems I've ever read. Some of the imagery is unbelievably potent and moving such as that found in Ariadne's lament after being abandoned by Theseus in Poem LXIV or Attis castrating himself in LXIII. Catullus reveals a great deal of himself in his poems and thereby reveals many truths about the human ...more
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Read in January, 2004
Latin Poetry.
I studied Catullus my fourth semester of Latin. It was tough, but fairly accessible for a student. He's one of the great Elegaic poets. His poems are funny yet beautiful yet sad. Everyone should read at least a little bit of Catullus (in English if you prefer).
I studied Catullus my fourth semester of Latin. It was tough, but fairly accessible for a student. He's one of the great Elegaic poets. His poems are funny yet beautiful yet sad. Everyone should read at least a little bit of Catullus (in English if you prefer).
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"What a woman says you can write on the wind and running water."
"I hate and I love."
I'm a Jewish feminist, and even I find his wit and rendering of heartbreak to be bulletproof. Long live Latin!
"I hate and I love."
I'm a Jewish feminist, and even I find his wit and rendering of heartbreak to be bulletproof. Long live Latin!
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Read in May, 1998
A decent English translation of one of the best Latin lyric poets out there.
Better to read it in the original Latin if you can, but for a translation, this isn't bad.
Better to read it in the original Latin if you can, but for a translation, this isn't bad.
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ok, so I'm not normally one for poetry, but Catullus was the Roman erotic writer of the times, some of his poems were said to be written about Sappho...good stuff
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Petra
Good clean classical fun on a stick. By my green scepter that boy could write about the loveliness of love!
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7/10 Ancient Roman porn! Really funny, some of it boring though.
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My favorite poet of all time. A fairly good translation.
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quotes from this book
"Odi et amo; quare fortasse requiris, nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
(my translation: I hate and I love, you ask why I do this, I do not know, but I feel and I am tormented)"
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