CATULLUS, GAIUS VALERIUS

born c. 84 BC, , Verona, Cisalpine Gaul died c. 54 BC, , Rome Roman poet whose expressions of love and hatred are generally considered the finest lyric poetry of ancient Rome. In 25 of his poems he speaks of his love for a woman he calls Lesbia, whose identity is uncertain. Other poems by Catullus are scurrilous outbursts of contempt or hatred for Julius Caesar and lesser personages. Additional reading The text of R.A.B. Mynors (1958), whose Praefatio succinctly explains the procedures essential for reconstruction of the text and summarizes the history of the first printed Renaissance editions, is standard. This text may be supplemented by the German edition of Mauritius Schuster (1949; rev. with additional bibliography by W. Eisenhut, 1958); and by the French Bud text of Georges Lafaye (1922; 3rd ed. rev. by M. Duchemin, 1949). Commentaries. The second edition of Robinson Ellis (1889) remains a classic despite its age. The American text and commentary of E.T. Merrill (1893, reprinted 1951) was long the only unabridged edition available in English; it is now joined by Kenneth Quinn, Catullus: The Poems, Edited with Commentary (1970). The otherwise exhaustive edition of C.J. Fordyce (1961) omits certain poems of significant critical interest, either literary or biographical. The German commentary of Wilhelm Kroll (1923, reprinted 1968) is a standard and complete work. That in Italian by M.L. De Gubernatis, 2nd ed. (1933, reprinted 1953), stresses literary interpretation. General. Estimates of Catullus' poetry and its place in Latin letters are offered by A.L. Wheeler, Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (1934, reprinted 1964), who gives special attention to the longer poems; by E.A. Havelock, The Lyric Genius of Catullus (1939, reprinted 1967), who sees the secret of the poet's significance in the short poems; and by Kenneth Quinn, The Catullan Revolution, 2nd rev. ed. (1969), who stresses the poet's place within the Roman tradition; as does David O. Ross, Jr., Style and Tradition in Catullus (1969). The biographical approach to the poems, pervasive in Merrill's commentary and criticized by Havelock, has been revived by T.P. Wiseman, Catullan Questions (1969). Translations. These, unabridged, responding to a new tolerance of the obscene in literature, have recently proliferated. Aside from the Loeb Library edition (text and translation by F.W. Cornish, 1912), versions in a more contemporary style include the following: F.O. Copley, Complete Poetry of Catullus (1957); R.A. Swanson, Odi et Amo: Complete Poetry (1959); Peter Whigham, Poems of Catullus (1966); Reney Myers and Robert J. Ormsby, Catullus: The Complete Poems for American Readers (1970); and Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish, The Poems of Catullus (1979). Major Works: Catullus' 116 extant poems may be classified under the headings lyric, epithalamium, miniature epic, elegy, and epigram. They were mostly written between 61 and 54 BC but cannot be dated exactly.Apart from V, VII, VIII, XI, LVIII, and LXXVI, which, with many others, are all devoted to the theme of Lesbia, Catullus' mistress, whether in delight, sorrow, or anger, special mention may perhaps be made of XXX, to a false friend; of XXXI, on his home at Sirmio; and of CI, on his brother's death.