Overview

The book is a translation into English verse of the poems of the Latin writer Catullus (first century BCE). Catullus's poems vary from two-line epigrams to much longer pieces, and they range in subjects from declarations of love (and celebrations of sex), to moving personal poems and also scurrilous attacks on others, including Julius Caesar himself. Although Catullus has often been translated very freely, this collection tries to balance formal poetic style with the sometimes very direct and deliberately startling vocabulary. An introductory essay, which acknowledges how often these poems have been put into English, concentrates not on Catullus himself (about whose life we know very little for sure), but on the general and specific problems of translating his work into poetic English. It also gives background details for some of the longer mythological poems.

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9781789633948

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Brian Murdoch is Professor Emeritus of German of the University of Stirling in Scotland and has held visiting fellowships and lectureships in Oxford and Cambridge. He has published monographs, articles, editions, and edited collections on early and medieval literature, mainly heroic or theological, including a study of the legend of Hero and Leander as well as several books on the biblical and apocryphal Adam and Eve story. He has also written extensively on the literature of the World Wars, and a study of the theme of Everyman in German war-plays appeared recently. As a translator, his publications include works from classical and medieval Latin and from medieval and modern German, most notably the new versions of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and its sequel, The Way Back, but also works by other writers, including Mirjam Pressler's novels for young adults, Shylock's Daughter, and Malka.

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