Synopses & Reviews
Poetry is often said to resist translation, its integration of form and meaning rendering even the best translations problematic. Elizabeth Marie Young disagrees, and with
Translation as Muse, she uses the work of the celebrated Roman poet Catullus to mount a powerful argument that translation can be an engine of poetic invention.
Catullus has long been admired as a poet, but his efforts as a translator have been largely ignored. Young reveals how essential translation is to his work: many poems by Catullus that we tend to label as lyric originals were in fact shaped by Roman translation practices entirely different from our own. By rereading Catullus through the lens of translation, Young exposes new layers of ingenuity in Latin poetry even as she illuminates the idiosyncrasies of Roman translation practice, reconfigures our understanding of translation history, and questions basic assumptions about lyric poetry itself.
Review
"This volume is strongly recommended to scholars and teachers for its sound exposition of a given Catullan problem and as a point of departure for any student starting out to explore the Catullan oeuvre." (
Sjarlene Thom, 2009)
"This Companion will be the best of companions to young Catullus scholars, as a strong starting point for work on the most important questions in Catullan studies." (New England Classical Journal, February 2009)
"This Companion will be the best of companions to young Catullus scholars, as a strong starting point for work on the most important questions in Catullan studies." (New England Classical Journal, February 2009)
"The volume's 27 essays are the work of a team of internationally renowned scholars.... It deserves a place in both the libraries of academic institutions as well as the well-stocked public library." (Reference Reviews, Issue 7 2008)
"Abounds with scholarship of a high order, state-of-the-art literary history and criticism, and, not least, solid practical advice for readers and instructors." (Choice)
"This reviewer recommends the book without reservation not only to the Catullus specialist, but also and especially to all classicists and teachers." (Scholia Reviews)
"Offers modern youth a direct hotline with an ancient author." (Journal of Classics Teaching)
"It is a strong volume, to which the student meeting Catullus for the first time and the highly experienced reader can be sent with confidence." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review)
Review
“Translation as Muse offers a coherent and stimulating reading of Catullus’s oeuvre. A major strength of the study lies in its readings of individual poems, and Young proves herself a fine literary critic. This book is a valuable contribution to the study of Catullus and of Roman Hellenism.”
Review
“Translation as Muse presents a new theoretical model of Roman translation practice in which drastic alteration of the original in an attempt to outdo it (aemulatio) is the motive force behind literary creation. Tracing Catullus’s part in culturally appropriating the Greek past through radical revision of his source texts, Young produces provocative metapoetic readings of familiar works. Critics should welcome this volume as a major contribution to both Catullan scholarship and translation studies.”
Synopsis
In this companion, international scholars provide a comprehensive overview that reflects the most recent trends in Catullan studies.
- Explores the work of Catullus, one of the best Roman ‘lyric poets’
- Provides discussions about production, genre, style, and reception, as well as interpretive essays on key poems and groups of poems
- Grounds Catullus in the socio-historical world around him
- Chapters challenge received wisdom, present original readings, and suggest new interpretations of biographical evidence
Synopsis
A Companion to Catullus addresses the central themes in Catullan studies, providing readers with the fundamental knowledge necessary to appreciate and understand the poet’s work.
This significant collection of essays from internationally renowned scholars includes discussions about production, genre, style, and reception, as well as interpretive essays on key poems and groups of poems. Grounding the author firmly in the socio-historical world around him, this companion reflects the most recent trends in the field. Chapters provide convenient surveys of complex issues and challenge received wisdom by presenting original readings of major poems and suggesting new interpretations of biographical evidence.
Synopsis
Poetry is often understood as a form that resists translation. Translation as Muse questions this truism, arguing for translation as a defining condition of Catulluss poetry and for this aggressively marginal poets centrality to comprehending cultural transformation in first-century Rome. Young approaches translation from several different angles including the translation of texts, the translation of genres, and translatio in the form of the pan-Mediterranean transport of people, goods, and poems. Throughout, she contextualizes Catulluss corpus within the cultural foment of Romes first-century imperial expansion, viewing his work as emerging from the massive geopolitical shifts that marked the era. Young proposes that reading Catullus through a translation framework offers a number of significant rewards: it illuminates major trends in late Republican culture, it reconfigures our understanding of translation history, and it calls into question some basic assumptions about lyric poetry, the genre most closely associated with Catulluss eclectic oeuvre.
About the Author
Marilyn B. Skinner is professor of classics at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her previous publications include Catullus’ Passer: The Arrangement of the Book of Polymetric Poems (1981), Catullus in Verona (2003), Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans (co-edited, 2004), and Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (Blackwell, 2005).
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations x
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Notes on Contributors xx
1 Introduction 1
Marilyn B. Skinner
Part I The Text and the Collection 11
2 History and Transmission of the Text 13
J. L. Butrica
3 Authorial Arrangement of the Collection: Debate Past and Present 35
Marilyn B. Skinner
Part II Contexts of Production 55
4 The Valerii Catulli of Verona 57
T. P. Wiseman
5 The Contemporary Political Context 72
David Konstan
6 The Intellectual Climate 92
Andrew Feldherr
7 Gender and Masculinity 111
Elizabeth Manwell
Part III Influences 129
8 Catullus and Sappho 131
Ellen Greene
9 Catullus and Callimachus 151
Peter E. Knox
Part IV Stylistics 173
10 Neoteric Poetics 175
W. R. Johnson
11 Elements of Style in Catullus 190
George A. Sheets
12 Catullus and Elite Republican Social Discourse 212
Brian A. Krostenko
Part V Poems and Groups of Poems 233
13 Catullus and the Programmatic Poem: The Origins, Scope, and Utility of a Concept 235
William W. Batstone
14 The Lesbia Poems 254
Julia T. Dyson Hejduk
15 Sexuality and Ritual: Catullus’ Wedding Poems 276
Vassiliki Panoussi
16 Catullan Intertextuality: Apollonius and the Allusive Plot of Catullus 64 293
Jeri Blair DeBrohun
17 Poem 68: Love and Death, and the Gifts of Venus and the Muses 314
Elena Theodorakopoulos
18 Social Commentary and Political Invective 333
W. Jeffrey Tatum
Part VI Reception 355
19 Catullus and Horace 357
Randall L. B. McNeill
20 Catullus and Vergil 377
Christopher Nappa
21 Catullus and Roman Love Elegy 399
Paul Allen Miller
22 Catullus and Martial 418
Sven Lorenz
23 Catullus in the Renaissance 439
Julia Haig Gaisser
24 The Modern Reception of Catullus 461
Brian Arkins
Part VII Pedagogy 479
25 Catullus in the Secondary School Curriculum 481
Ronnie Ancona and Judith P. Hallett
26 Catullus in the College Classroom 503
Daniel H. Garrison
Part VIII Translation 521
27 Translating Catullus 523
Elizabeth Vandiver
Consolidated Bibliography 542
General Index 568
Index Locorum 585