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spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
2.0
Note that this is not ipso facto a translation of Catullus's poetry but rather a book about Catullus's poetry. There were indeed a handful of translations of various poems, but only within the context of poetry in general as it applies to Catullus. Lots of discussion of chiasmus and whatnot. I disagreed with a good deal of it. Charles Martin is a great fan of Catullus, perhaps overly so, and tends to lionise Catullus's poetic abilities beyond what is reasonable, while downplaying the perhaps more negative aspects of Catullus's poetry, viz. the depictions and threats of sexual violence in poem XVI, for example.
Many books on the broad topic of classics tend to equivocate whether they want to be a layperson's introduction or a more academic scholarly thesis, and subsequently fail at being either. This book is no exception. The discussion of poetic jargon and the inclusion of Latin were in line with the latter, but the crude and often overly bawdy translations and oversimplifications of terminology were in line with the former. The fact that the book was intended to be accessible to those who have no understanding of Latin is not actually a point in its favour, in my opinion. Any serious student of Catullus('s poetry) will have to know Latin. That is a prerequisite for studying Latin poetry.
Another issue is Martin's perspective on Catullus's role in the poetic tradition. Martin notes that Catullus "differs from the other" major Latin poets due to "his accessibility to the general reader"; unlike "Horace, Virgil, and Ovid [who] shaped our poetic meters and matters, Catullus lay hidden under his bushel." Very silly argument, in my opinion. According to Martin, Catullus, who was "championed by the early modernists" (not wrong per se), "is now in a real sense one of us, a Latin poet who speaks to our age with a singular directness." Again: very silly argument. Catullus is no more inherently relatable than Horace, Vergil, or Ovid. You've just read bad translations.
Anyway, I don't necessarily disagree that the Neoterics (νεωτερικοί) were similar to the Modernists. I just think there are better ways to phrase it.
Many books on the broad topic of classics tend to equivocate whether they want to be a layperson's introduction or a more academic scholarly thesis, and subsequently fail at being either. This book is no exception. The discussion of poetic jargon and the inclusion of Latin were in line with the latter, but the crude and often overly bawdy translations and oversimplifications of terminology were in line with the former. The fact that the book was intended to be accessible to those who have no understanding of Latin is not actually a point in its favour, in my opinion. Any serious student of Catullus('s poetry) will have to know Latin. That is a prerequisite for studying Latin poetry.
Another issue is Martin's perspective on Catullus's role in the poetic tradition. Martin notes that Catullus "differs from the other" major Latin poets due to "his accessibility to the general reader"; unlike "Horace, Virgil, and Ovid [who] shaped our poetic meters and matters, Catullus lay hidden under his bushel." Very silly argument, in my opinion. According to Martin, Catullus, who was "championed by the early modernists" (not wrong per se), "is now in a real sense one of us, a Latin poet who speaks to our age with a singular directness." Again: very silly argument. Catullus is no more inherently relatable than Horace, Vergil, or Ovid. You've just read bad translations.
Anyway, I don't necessarily disagree that the Neoterics (νεωτερικοί) were similar to the Modernists. I just think there are better ways to phrase it.
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